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THESILVER«SER1ES OF 
ENGLISH CLASSICS 



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CARLYLE 
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BURNS 



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EDITED BY 

HOMER B.5PRAGUE Ph.D. 



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3H^ER,BURDETT 



STUDIES IN ENGLISH CLASSICS. 



SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. 

EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY 
HOMER B. SPRAGUE, Ph.D. 

The Merchant of Venice. As You Like It. 

Macbeth. The Tempest. 

Hamlet. A Midsummer Night's 
Julius Cssar. Dream. 

In Uniform Edition, by the same Editor: 

THE LADY OF THE LAKE. By Sir Walter Scorr, 
THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. By Oliver Goldsmith. 

Introductory Prices. 

Bound in cloth .... 43 cents. 
Bound in paper .... 30 cents. 



SELECT MINOR POEMS OF MILTOM. 

Edited by James E. Thomas, B.A., Teacher of English in the Boys' English 
High School, Boston. Cloth, 48 cents; paper, 30 cents. 

IRVING'S SKETCH BOOK. 

Edited by James Chalmers, Ph.D., President of the State Normal School, 
Platteville, Wis. Cloth, 60 cents. 

SELECT ENGLISH CLASSICS. 

Selected and Edited, with Notes, by James Baldwin, Ph.D. Four volumes 
now ready: "Six Centuries of English Poetry," "The Famous Alle- 
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cloth, 72 cents each. 

The special attention of teachers is invited to these choice editions, with a view 
to introduction into their classes and schools. 

SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY, Publishers, 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 




THOMAS CARLYLE. 



The Silver Series of English Classics 



/ 

CARLYLE'S 



ESSAY ON BURNS 



EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND 
CRITICAL COMMENTS 







.A^ 



BY 



HOMER B. SPRAGUE, A.M., Ph.D. 

FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY, AND PRESIDENT OF 

THE STATE UNIVF.RSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA; EDITOR OF "MASTERPIECES 

IN ENGLISH LITERATURE," " STUDIES IN ENGLISH CLASSICS," ETC. 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY ^ 

New York BOSTON Chicago {^ U 2)^^ ^ 

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By silver, BURDETT & COMPANY. 



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THE SOWER'S SONG. 
By Thomas Carlyle. 

Now hands to seed-sheet, boys, 
We step and we cast ; old Time's on wing : 
And would ye partake of harvest's joys, 
The corn must be sown in spring. 
Fall gently and still, good corn. 
Lie warm in thy earthy bed, - 
And stand so yellow some morn, 
That beast and man may be fed. 

Old Earth is a pleasure to see 
In sunshiny cloak of red and green ; 
The furrow lies fresh ; this year will be 
As the years that are past have been. 
•Fall gently and still, etc. 

Old Mother, receive this corn. 
The seed of six thousand golden sires : 
All these on thy kindly breast were born ; 
One more thy poor child requires. 
Fall gently and still, etc. 

Now steady and sure again. 
And measure of stroke and step we keep ; 
Thus up and thus down we cast our grain ; 
Sow well, and you gladly reap. 
Fall gently and still, etc. 



I 



PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENT. 



The Silver Series of English Classics is designed to fur- 
nish editions of many of the standard classics in English and 
American literature, in the best possible form for reading and 
study. While planned to meet the requirements for entrance 
examinations to college, as formulated by the Commission of 
American Colleges, it serves a no less important purpose in pro- 
viding valuable and attractive reading for the use of the higher 
grades of public and private schools. 

It is now generally recognized that to familiarize students ■with 
the masterpieces of literature is the best means of developing true 
literary taste, and of establishing a love of good reading which will 
be a permanent delight. The habit of cultured original expression 
is also established through the influence of such study. 

To these ends, carefully edited and annotated editions of the 
Classics, which shall direct pupils in making intelligent and appre- 
ciative study of each work as a whole, and, specifically, of its indi- 
vidual features, are essential in the classroom. 

The Silver Series notably meets this need, through the edit- 
ing of its volumes by scholars of high literary ability and educa- 
tional experience. It unfolds the treasui'es of literary art, and 
shows the power and beauty of our language in the various forms 
of English composition, — as the oration, the essay, the argument, 
the biography, the poem, etc. 

Thus, the first volume contains Webster's oration at the laying 
of the corner stone of Bunker Hill monument ; and, after a brief 
sketch of the orator's life, the oration is defined, — the speech itself 
furnishing a practical example of what a masterpiece in oratory 
should be. 

Next follows the essay, as exemplified by Macaulay's " Essay on 
Milton." The story of the life of the great essayist creates an 
interest in his work, and the student, before he proceeds to study 



6 PUBLISHERS ANNOUNCEMENT. 

the essay, is shown in the Introduction the difference between the 
oratorical and the essayistic style. 

After this, Burke's " Speech on Conciliation " is treated in a 
similar manner, the essential principles of forensic authorship 
being set forth. 

Again, De Quincey's " Flight of a Tartar Tribe " — a conspic- 
uous example of pure narration — exhibits the character and qual- 
ity of this department of literary composition. 

Southey's "Life of Nelson" is presented in the same personal 
and critical manner, placing before the student the essential char- 
acteristics of the biographical style. 

The series continues with specimens of such works as " The 
Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Coleridge ; the " Essay on 
Burns," by Carlyle ; the " Sir Roger De Coverley Papers," by Addi- 
son ; Milton's " Paradise Lost," Books I. and II. ; Pope's " Iliad," 
Books L, VL, XXII., and XXIY. ; Dryden's " Palamon and Ar- 
cite," and other works of equally eminent writei-s, covering, in the 
completed series, a large and diversified area of literary exposition. 

The functions of the several departments of authorship are 
explained in simple terms. The beginner, as well as the some- 
what advanced scholar, will find in this series ample instruction 
and guidance for his own study, without being perplexed by 
abstruse or doubtful problems. 

With the same thoughtfulness for the student's progress, the 
appended Notes provide considerable information outright ; but 
they are also designed to stimulate the student in making re- 
searches for himself, as well as in applying, under the direction of 
the teacher, the principles laid down in the critical examination 
of the separate divisions. 

A portrait, either of the author or of the personage about whom 
he writes, will form an attractive feature of each volume. The text 
is from approved editions, keeping as far as possible the original 
form ; and the contents offer, at a very reasonable price, the latest 
results of critical instruction in the art of literary expression. 

The teacher will appreciate the fact that enough, and not too 
much, assistance is rendered the student, leaving the instructor 
ample room for applying and extending the principles and sug- 
gestions which have been presented. 



.J 



INTRODUCTION. 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 

It is not our purpose to write a biography of Carlyle. 
Each student shouhl make an outline of it for himself. 
We give here merely a few facts and hints. 

Thomas Carlyle's early environment somewhat resembled 
that of Robert Burns. 

His father was at first a stone mason, and afterwards a 
small farmer. His mother was a painstaking woman, de- 
vout and sweet-souled. Both were very intelligent, very 
conscientious, and terribly in earnest. Hard work, plain 
living, and high thinking Avere cheerfully accepted as 
their Heaven-ordained lot. Thomas inherited that inten- 
sity which Coleridge makes a prime element in genius. 

At the parish school, while yet a child, he displayed 
extraordinary precocity. At the Annan Grammar School, 
which he entered at eight, he could translate Virgil and 
Horace with ease. 

Entering Edinburgh University at fourteen, he seemed 
an embodiment of the intellectual force which he ever 
afterwards worshiped. He distinguished himself in mathe- 
matics, but he never liked the curriculum. He spent his 
time mostly in the library, and finally left withont 
graduation. '■ 

./ 7 



8 THOMAS CARLVLE. 

Like Milton, he had l)een destined by his father to 
the ministry. "And so," he says, "I entered into my 
chamber and closed the door, and around me there came 
a trooping throng of phantasms dire from the abysmal 
depths of nethermost perdition. Doubt, Fear, Unbelief, 
Mockery, and Scorn Avere there ; and I arose and wrestled 
with them in agon}^ of spirit." 

Quitting the University, he engaged for some years in 
teaching ; but he was ambitious, and his heart was else- 
where. 

He became fascinated with the German language and 
literature. In 1824 he received £180 for his translation 
of "Wilhelm Meister." 

His marriage in 1826 to Jane Welsh, whom he had 
taken " by storm," was on the Avhole fortunate. But they 
were never blest with children, and so never experienced 
the sorely-needed, sweet, refining, harmonizing influence of 
the presence of little ones. 

They lived first at Comely Bank, Edinburgh ; but, just 
as Carlyle was beginning to acquire a reputation, they 
removed to " the loneliest nook in Britain, six miles from 
any one likely to visit " ^ them. His wife's small property 
sufficed to support them in a frugal way. Here he wrote 
his famous '^ Sartor Resartus." 

After six years at Craigenputtoch, the long-felt need 
of access to libraries induced him to move, in 1834, to 
the great metropolis. He resided during the rest of his 
life in Cheyne Row, C'helsea. The humble old-fashioned 
house is still a shrine for literary tourists. 

1 Letter to Goethe from Craigenputtoch, his wife's estate. 



I 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

More than Sir Walter Raleigh, he could " toil terribly," 
as the many productions of his tireless pen abundantly 
testify. His genius and industry at last compelled universal 
recognition. His election in 1865 as Lord Rector of the 
University of Edinburgh was an honor that might well 
have satisfied his ambition; but, during this period of 
triumphant joy, the death of his wife, whom — notwith- 
standing a thousand quarrels, half-serious, half -jocose — he 
tenderly loved, clouded all his sky ; and from that hour 
till his death in 1881, his soul was in shadow and gloom. 

His favorite theory of life often seemed to be that 
''might makes right." If he ever thought so, he found 
out, long before his death, that the gospel of force is no 
substitute for tlie gospel of love ; that one cannot drive 
shams out from society, nor compel sincerity, nor scold 
men into decency and righteousness. 

A great, sad, heroic soul, to whom duty, obedience, work, 
truth, fortitude, were sacred words, and who for God and 
man splendidly chose 

"To scorn delights and live laborious days" 

— we may well believe that, in spite of his many infirmities 
of temper and some errors of judgment, no age will come 
when men will cease to hold in veneration a;nd love the 
name of Thomas Carlyle. 



On the following pages will be found specimens show- 
ing Carlyle's descriptive power, his grim humor, his 
tenderness, etc. 



10 "THOMAS CARLYLE. 



m' 



EXTRACTS FROM CARLYLE'S WRITINGS. 

Sahara Waltzes. — As in dry Sahara, when the winds 
waken and lift and winnoAv the immensity of sand ! The 
air itself (travelers say) is a dim sand-air ; and, dim loom- 
ing through it, the Avonderfulest uncertain colonnades of 
sand-pillars rush whirling from this side and that, like so 
many mad spinning-dervishes of a hundred feet in stature, 
and dance their huge desert-waltz there ! 

— The FrencJi Revolution, III. i. 

Execution of Marie Antoinette. — The bloom of 
that fair face is wasted, the hair is gray with care ; the 
brightness of those eyes is quenched, their lids hang droop- 
ing, the face is stony pale as of one living in death. Mean 
weeds (which her own hand has mended) attire the Queen 
of the World. 

The death-hurdle, where thou sittest pale, motionless, 
which only curses environ, has to stop: a people, drunk 
with vengeance, will drink it again in full draught look- 
ing on thee there : far as the eye reaches, a multitudinous 
sea of maniac heads ; the air deaf with their triumph yell ! 
The Living dead must shudder with yet one other pang: 
lier startled blood yet again suffuses with the hue of 
agony that pale face which she hides with her hands. 

There is, then, no heart to say, God pity thee? Oh, 
think not of these ; think of Him whom thou worshipest, 
the Crucified, — who, also, treading the winepress alone, 
fronted sorrow still deeper; and triumphed over it, and 
made it Holy ; and built of it a ' Sanctuary of Sorrow/ for 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

thee and all the wretched ! Thy path of thorns is nigh 
ended. 

One long last look at the Tnileries, where thy step 
was once so light, — where thy children shall not dwell. 

The head is on the block ; the ax rushes Dumb lies 

the World; that Avild-yelling World, and all its madness, 
is behind thee ! — The Diamond Necklace. 

The Personal Appearance of Cromwell. — "His 

highness," says Whitelocke, '' was in a rich but plain suit, — 
black velvet, with cloak of the same ; about his hat a broad 
band of gold." Does the reader see him ? A rather likely 
figure, I think. Stands some five feet ten or more ; a man 
of strong, solid stature, and dignified, now partly military 
carriage : the expression of him, valor and devout intelli- 
gence, — energy and delicacy on a basis of simplicity. 
Fifty-four years old, gone April last; brown hair and 
moustache are getting gray. A figure of sufficient impres- 
siveness, — not lovely to the man-milliner species, nor 
pretending to be so. Massive stature; big, massive head, 
of somewhat leonine aspect ; wart above the right eyebrow ; 
nose of considerable blunt-aquiline proportions; strict yet 
copious lips, full of all tremulous sensibilities, and also, if 
need were, of all fiercenesses and vigors ; deep, loving eyes, 
— call them grave, call them stern, — looking from under 
those craggy brows as if in life-long sorrow, and yet not 
thinking it sorrow, — thinking it only labor and endeavor : 
on the Avhole, a right noble lion-face ; and hero-face ; and to 
me royal enough. 

— Oliver CromicelVs Letters and Speeches. 



12 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

Midnight in a Great City. — ^' Ach, mein Lieber!" 
(Ah, my dear sir !) said he (Professor Teufelsdrockh) once, 
at midnight, Avhen we had returned from the Coffee-house 
in rather earnest talk, " it is a true sublimity to dwell here 
[in a tower high above all the city roofs]. 

" These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through smoke 
and thousand-fold exhalation some fathoms into the an- 
cient reign of Night — what thinks Bootes of them as he 
leads his Hunting-dogs over the Zenith in their leash of 
sidereal fire ? 

"That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain 
down to rest ; and the chariot- wheels of Vanity, still rolling 
here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to 
Halls roofed-in, and lighted to the due pitch for her ; and 
only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like night-birds, 
are abroad, — that hum, I say, like the stertorous unquiet 
slumber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven ! 

" Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors and putrefac- 
tions and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies 
simmering and hid ! 

" The joyful and the sorrowful are there ; men are dying 
there, men are being born ; men are praying, — on the other 
side of a brick partition, men are cursing; — and around 
them all is the vast void Night ! 

" The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, 
or reposes within damask curtains ; Wretchedness cowers 
into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of 
straw : in obscure cellars, Rouge-et-Noir [Red and Black, a 
game of cards in which the players bet against the bank] 
languidly emits its voice of destiny to haggard hungry 



INTRODUCTION. • 13 

Villains; while Councilors of State sit plotting, and play- 
ing their high chess-game whereof the pawns are Men. 
The Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready, 
and she, full of hope and fear, glides down to fly with him 
over the borders : the Thief, still more silently, sets-to his 
picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen 
first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms 
and dancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high- 
swelling hearts ; but in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of 
life beats tremulous and faint, and blood-shot eyes look out 
through the darkness, which is around and within, for the 
light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on 
the morrow: comes no hammering from the Jiabenstein 
[place of execution] ? — their gallows must even now be o' 
building ! 

" Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged animals 
without feathers lie round us in horizontal positions, their 
heads all in nightcaps and full of the foolishest dreams ! 

" Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank 
dens of shame ; and the Mother with streaming hair kneels 
over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips only her 
tears now moisten ! 

"All these huddled and heaped together, with nothing 
but a little carpentry and masonry between them ; — 
crammed in, like salted fish in their barrel ; or weltering, 
shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each 
struggling to get its head above the others: — such work 
goes on under that smoke-counterpane! — But I, mein 
Werther, sit above it all ! I am alone with the Stars ! " 

— Sartor Resartus, I. iii. 



14 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

The three following passages afford specimens of Car- 
lyle's humor: — 

The genius of England no longer soars sunward, world- 
defiant, like an eagle through the storms, " mewing her 
mighty youth," as John Milton saw her do : the genius of 
England, much liker a greedy ostrich intent on provender 
and a Avhole skin mainly, stands with its other extremity 
sunward ; with its ostrich head stuck into the readiest 
bush, of old church-tippets, king-cloaks, or what other 
" sheltering fallacy " there may be, and so aAvaits the 
issue. The issue has been slow; but it is now seen to 
have been inevitable. No ostrich, intent on gross terrene 
provender, and sticking its head into fallacies, but will 
be awakened one day in a terrible, a posteriori manner, 
if not otherwise. — Oliver Cromivell's Letters and Sj^eeches. 
t 

Sovereigns die and sovereignties : how all dies, and is 
for a time only ; is a ' time-phantasm,' yet reckons itself 
real ! The Merovingian kings, slowly wending on their 
bullock carts through the streets of Paris, with their long 
hair flowing, have all wended slowly on — into eternity ! 
Charlemagne sleeps at Salzburg, with truncheon grounded ; 
only fable expecting that he will awaken. Charles the 
Hammer, Pepin bow-legged — where now is their eye of 
menace, their voice of command ? Rollo and his shaggy 
Northmen cover not the Seine with ships ; but have sailed 
off on a longer voyage. The hair of Tow-head {THe 
d'^toupes) now needs no combing: Iron-cutter (Taillefer) 
cannot cut a cobweb : shrill Fredegonda, shrill Brunhilda, 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

have liad out their hot life-scold, and lie silent, their hot 
life-frenzy cooled. — Tlie French Revolution. 

A crowded portal this of Literature, accordingly ! The 
haven of expatriated spiritualisms, and alas, also of 
expatriated vanities and prurient imbecilities : here do 
the windy aspirations, foiled activities, foolish ambi- 
tions, and frustrate human energies reduced to the voca- 
ble condition, fly as to the one refuge left ; and the 
Republic of Letters increases in population at a faster 
rate than even the Republic of America. The strangest 
regiment in her Majesty's service, this of the Soldiers of 
Literature — would your Lordship much like to march 
through Coventry with them ? The immortal gods are 
there (quite irrecognizable under these disguises), and also 
the lowest broken valets; — an extremely miscellaneous 
regiment. In fact, the regiment, superficially viewed, 
looks like an immeasurable motley flood of discharged 
play-actors, funambulists, false prophets, drunken ballad- 
singers ; and marches not as a regiment, but as a bound- 
less canaille, — without drill, uniform, captaincy, or billet; 
with huge over-proportion of drummers ; you would say a 
regiment gone wholly to the drum, with hardly a good 
musket to be seen in it, — more a canaille than a regi- 
ment. Canaille of all the loud-sounding levities, and gen- 
eral winnowings of Chaos, marching through the world 
in a most ominous manner; proclaiming audibly if you 
have ears: ''Twelfth hour of the Night; ancient graves 
yawning; pale clammy Puseyisms screeching in their 
winding sheets ; owls busy in the City regions ; many 



16 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

goblins abroad! Awake ye living; dream no more; ar; 
to judgment ! Chaos and Gehenna are broken loose ; t 
Devil with his Bedlams must be flung in chains agai 
and the Last of the Days is about to dawn ! " Such 
Literature to the reflective soul at this moment ! 

— Stmn2i Orator iu Latter-Day Pamphlets. 

Here are some examples of Carlyle's tenderness : 

Poor, wandering, wayward man! Art thou not trie 
and beaten with stripes, even as I am ? Ever, whethii- 
thou bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, at 
thou not so weary, so heavy-laden? and thy Bed of ~Rq^\ 
is but a Grave! my Brother, my Brother! why canno' 
I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe away all tears froin 
thy eyes? — Sartor Resartus. 

O ye loved ones that already sleep in the noiseless 
Bed of Rest, whom in life I could only weep for aiM! 
never help ; and ye who, wide-scattered, still toil lonely ;i 
the monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with 
your blood — yet a little while and we shall all meet 
there, and our Mother's bosom will screen us all, and 
Oppression's harness, and Sorrow's tire-whip, and all tlie 
Gehenna bailiffs that patrol and inhabit ever-vexed tin 
cannot thenceforth harm us any more ! — Sartor Resartus. 

Politeness. — Given a noble man, I think your Lor 1- 
ship may expect by and by a polite man. No politer 
man was to be found in Britain than the rustic Robert 
Burns : high duchesses were captivated with the chivctl- 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

rous ways of the man ; recognized that here was the true 
chivalry, and divine nobleness of bearing — as indeed 
they well might, now when the Peasant God and Norse 
Tlior had come down among them again ! Chivalry this, 
if not as they do Chivalry in Drury Lane or West End 
drawing-rooms, yet as they do it in Valhalla and the Gen- 
eral Assembly of the Gods. — T/te Stump Orator. 

Carlyle's greatest mistake was his attitude towards 
the United States during the Civil War, as shown in the fol- 
lowing squib : — 

Ilias Americana in Nuce. 
(The American Iliad in a nutshell.) 

Peter, of the North (to Paul, of the South). — Vd,n\, you 
unaccountable scoundrel, I find you hire your servants 
for life, — not by the month, or year, as I do! You are 
going straight to Hell, you — ! 

Paul. — Good words, Peter ! The risk is my own ; I 
am willing to take the risk. Hire you your servants by 
the month or the day, and get straight to Heaven; leave 
me to my own method. 

Peter. — No ; I won't ! I will beat your brains out 
first! (And is trying dreadfully ever since, but cannot 
yet manage it.) — Macmillan' s Magazine, August, 1863. 

The Hero as Man of Letters. — It was a curious 
phenomenon, in the withered, unbelieving, secondhand 
Eighteenth Century, that of a Hero starting up, among 
the artificial pasteboard figures and productions^ in the 






18 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

guise of a Robert Burns. Like a little well in the rocky 
desert places, — like a sudden splendor of Heaven in 
the artificial Vauxhall ! People knew not what to make 
of it. They took it for a piece of the Vauxhall firework ! 
alas, it let itself be so taken, though struggling half- 
blindly, as in bitterness of death, against that ! Perhaps no 
man had such a false reception from his fellow-men. Once 
more a very wasteful life-drama was enacted under the sun. 

The tragedy of Burns's life is known to all of you. 
Surely we may say, if discrepancy between place held and 
place merited constitute perverseness of lot for a man, no 
lot covild be more perverse than Burns's. Among those 
secondhand acting-figures, mimes for most part, of the 
Eighteenth Century, once more a giant Original Man ; one 
of those men who reach down to the perennial Deeps, who 
take rank with the Heroic among men : and he was born 
in a poor Ayrshire hut. The largest soul of all the British 
lands came among us in the shape of a hard-handed Scot- 
tish Peasant. 

His Father, a poor toiling man, tried various things; 
did not succeed in any; was involved in continual diffi- 
culties. The Steward, Pactor as the Scotch call him, used 
to send letters and threatenings, Burns says, " which threw 
us all into tears." The brave, hard-toiling, hard-suffering 
Father, his brave heroine of a wife ; and those children 
of whom Robert was one ! In this Earth, so wide other- 
wise, no shelter for them. The letters " threw us all into 
tears:" figure it! The brave Father, I say always; — a 
silent Hero and Poet; without whom the son had never 
been a speaking one! Burns's Schoolmaster came after- 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

Avards to London, learnt what good society was ; but de- 
clares that in no meeting of men did he ever enjoy better 
discourse than at the hearth of this peasant. And his 
poor "seven acres of nursery -ground," — not that, nor the 
miserable patch of clay-farm, nor anything he tried to get 
a living by, Avould prosper Avith him ; he had a sore, un- 
equal battle all his days. But he stood to it valiantly; 
a wise, faithful, unconquerable man ; — swallowing down 
how many sore suiferings daily into silence; fighting like 
an unseen Hero, — nobody publishing newspaper para- 
graphs about his nobleness ; voting pieces of plate to 
him ! However he was not lost : nothing is lost. Robert 
is there ; the outcome of him, — and indeed of many gen- 
erations of such as him. 

This Burns appeared under every disadvantage : unin- 
structed, poor, born only to hard manual toil; and writing, 
when it came to that, in a rustic special dialect, known 
only to a small province of the country he lived in. Had 
he written even what he did write, in the general language 
of England, I doubt not he had already become universally 
recognized as being, or capable to be, one of our greatest 
men. That he should have tempted so many to penetrate 
through the rough husk of that dialect of his, is proof that 
there lay something far' from common within it. He has 
gained a certain recognition, and is continuing to do so over 
all quarters of our wide Saxon world : wheresoever a Saxon 
dialect is spoken, it begins to be understood, by personal 
inspection of this and the other, that one of the most con- 
siderable Saxon men of the Eighteenth century was an 
Ayrshire Peasant named Robert Burns. Yes, I will say, 



20 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

here too was a piece of the right Saxon stuff: strong as the 
Harz-rock, rooted in the depths of the workl ; — rock, yet 
with wells of living softness in it ! A wild impetuous 
whirlwind of passion and faculty slumbered quiet there; 
such heavenly melody dwelling in the heart of it. A noble 
rough genuineness ; homely, rustic, honest ; true simplicity 
of strength ; with its lightning fire ; with its soft, dewy pity ; 
— like the old Norse Thor, the Peasant-god ! — 

Burns's Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, 
has told me that Robert, in his young days, in spite of their 
hardship, was usually the gayest of speech ; a fellow of in- 
finite frolic, laughter, sense, and heart; far pleasanter to 
hear there, stript, cutting peats in the bog, or suchlike, than 
he ever afterwards knew him. I can well believe it. This 
basis of mirth ('fojid gaillard,' as old Marquis Mirabeau 
calls it), a primal-element of sunshine and joyfulness, 
coupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one 
of the most attractive characteristics of Burns. A large 
fund of Hope dwells in him ; spite of his tragical history, 
he is not a mourning man. He shakes his sorrows gal- 
lantly aside ; bounds forth victorious over them. It is as 
the lion shaking " dew-drops from his mane ; " as the swift- 
bounding horse, that laughs at the shaking of the spear. — 
But indeed, Hope, Mirth, of the sort like Burns's, — are 
they not the outcome properly of Avarm generous affection, 
such as is the beginning of all to every man? 

You would think it strange if I called Burns the most 
gifted British soul we had in all that century of his ; and 
yet I believe the day is coming when there will be little 
danger in saying so. His writings, all that he did under 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

* 

such obstructions, are only a poor fragment of him. Pro- 
fessor Stewart remarked very justly, what indeed is true of 
all Poets good for much, that his poetry was not any partic- 
ular faculty, but the general result of a naturally vigorous 
original mind expressing itself iit that way. Burns's gifts, 
expressed in conversation, are the theme of all that ever 
heard him. All kinds of gifts : from the gracefulest utter- 
ances of courtesy to the highest fire of passionate speech ; 
loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic 
emphasis, clear piercing insight, — all was in him. Witty 
duchesses celebrate liim as a man whose speech " led them 
off their feet." This is beautiful : but still more beautiful 
that which Mr. Lockhart has recorded, which I have more 
than once alluded to : How the waiters and ostlers at inns 
would get out of bed, and come crowding to hear this man 
speak ! Waiters and ostlers ! — they too were men, and 
here was a man ! I have heard much about his speech ; 
but one of the best things I ever heard of it was, last year, 
from a venerable gentleman long familiar with him. That 
it was a speech distinguished by always having something in 
if. " He spoke rather little than much," this old man told 
me ; " sat rather silent in those early days, as in the com- 
pany of persons above him ; and always when he did speak, 
it Avas to throw new light on the matter." I know not why 
any one should ever speak otherwise ! — But if Ave look 
at his general force of soul, his healthy robustness every 
way, the rugged doAvnrightness, penetration, generous valor 
and manfulness that Avas in him, — where shall we readily 
find a better-gifted man '.' 

Among the great men of the Eighteenth Century, I 



22 THOMAS CAELYLE. 

sometimes feel as if Burns might be found to resemble 
Mirabeau more than any other. They differ widely in 
vesture ; yet look at them intrinsically. There is the 
same burly, thick-necked strength of body as of soul ; — 
built, in both cases, on wRat the old Marquis calls a fond 
gaillard. By nature, by course of breeding, indeed by 
nation, Mirabeau has much more of bluster; a noisy, for- 
ward, unresting man. But the characteristic of Mirabeau 
too is veracity and sense, power of true insight, superiority 
of vision. The thing that he says is worth remembering. 
It is a flash of insight into some object or other: so do 
both these men speak. The same raging passions ; capa- 
ble too in both of manifesting themselves as the tenderest 
noble affections. Wit, wild laughter, energy, directness, 
sincerity : these were in both. The types of the two 
men are not dissimilar. Burns too could have governed, 
debated in National Assemblies ; politicized, as few could. 
Alas, the courage which had to exhibit itself in capture 
of smuggling schooners in the Solway Frith ; in keeping 
silence over so much, Avhere no good speech, but only inar- 
ticulate rage was possible : this might have bellowed forth 
Ushers de Breze and the like; and made itself visible to 
all men, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling of great ever- 
memorable epochs ! But they said to him reprovingly, 
his Official Superiors said, and wrote : " You are to work, 
not think." Of your tliinMng-idiCwMj , the greatest in this 
land, we have no need ; you are to gauge beer there ; for 
that only are you wanted. Very notable; — and worth men- 
tioning, though Ave know what is to be said and answered ! 
As if Thought, Power of Thinking, were not, at all times, 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

in all places and situations of the world, precisely the 
thing that was wanted ! The fatal man ; is he not always 
the rt^thinking man, the man who cannot think and see; 
but only grope, and hallucinate, and m^s-see the nature of 
the thing he works with? He mis-sees it, mistakes it as we 
say ; takes it for one thing, and it is another thing, — and 
leaves him standing like a Futility there ! He is the fatal 
man ; unutterably fatal, put in the high places of men. — 
'' Why complain of this ? " say some : " Strength is mourn- 
fully denied its arena ; that was true from of old." Doubt- 
less ; and the worse for the arena, answer I ! Complaining 
profits little ; stating of the truth may profit. That a 
Europe, with its French Eevolution just breaking out, finds 
no need of a Burns except for gauging beer, — is a thing I, 
for one, cannot rejoice at ! — 

Once more we have to say here, that the chief quality 
of Burns is the sincerity of him. So in his Poetry, so in 
his Life. The Song he sings is not of fantasticalities ; it 
is of a thing felt, really there ; the prime merit of this, as 
of all in him, and of his Life generally, is truth. The 
Life of Burns is what we may call a great tragic sincerity. 
A sort of savage sincerity, — not cruel, far from that ; but 
wild, wrestling naked with the truth of things. In that 
sense, there is something of the savage in all great 
men. 

Hero-worship, — Odin, Burns ? Well ; these Men of 
Letters too were not without a kind of Hero-worship : but 
what a strange condition has that got into now! The 
waiters and ostlers of Scotch inns, prying about the door, 
eager to catch any word that fell from Burns, were do- 



24 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

ing unconscious reverence to the Heroic. Johnson had 
his Boswell for worshiper. Kousseau had Avorsliipers 
enough : princes calling on him in his mean garret ; the 
great, the beautiful doing reverence to the poor moon- 
struck man. For himself a most portentous contradic- 
tion; the two ends of his life not to be brought into 
harmony. He sits at the table of grandees ; and has to 
copy music for his own living. He cannot even get his 
music copied. " By dint of dining out," says he, " I run 
the risk of dying by starvation at home." For his wor- 
shipers too a most questionable thing ! If doing Hero- 
Avorship well or badly be the test of vital well-being or 
ill-being to a generation, can we say that these generations 
are very first-rate? — And yet our heroic Men of Letters 
do teach, govern, are kings, priests, or what you like to 
call them ; intrinsically there is no preventing it by any 
means whatever. The world has to obey him wlio thinks 
and sees in the world. The world can alter the numner 
of that; can either have it as blessed continuous summer 
sunshine, or as unblessed black thunder tornado, — with 
unspeakable difference of profit for the world ! The man- 
ner of it is very alterable ; the matter and fact of it is 
not alterable by any power under the sky. Light ; or, 
failing that, lightning: the world can take its choice. 
Not Avhether we call an Odin god, prophet, priest, or what 
we call him ; but whether we believe the word he tells 
us : there it all lies. If it be a true word, we shall have 
to believe it; believing it, we shall have to do it. What 
vavie or welcome we give him or it, is a point that con- 
cerns ourselves mainly. It, the new Trutli, new deeper 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

revealing of the Secret of this Universe, is verily of the 
nature of a message from on high ; and must and will 
have itself obeyed. — 

My last remark is on that notablest phasis of Burns's 
history, — his visit to Edinburgh. Often it seems to me 
as if his demeanor there were the highest proof he gave 
of what a fund of worth and genuine manhood was in 
him. If we think of it, few heavier burdens could be laid 
on the strength of a man. So sudden ; all common Lionism, 
which ruins innumerable men, was as nothing to this. It 
is as if Napoleon had been made a King of, not gradually, 
but at once from the Artillery Lieutenancy in the Regi- 
ment La Fere. Burns, still only in his twenty-seventh 
year, is no longer even a plowman ; he is flying to the 
West Indies to escape disgrace, and a jail. This month 
he is a ruined peasant, his wages seven pounds a j-ear, 
and these gone from him; next month he is in the blaze 
of rank and beauty, handing down jeweled Duchesses to 
dinner; the cynosure of all eyes! Adversity is sometimes 
hard upon a man ; but for one man who can stand prosperity, 
there are a hundred that will stand adversity. I admire 
much the way in which Burns met all this. Perhaps no 
man one could point out, was ever so sorely tried, and so 
little forgot himself. Tranquil, unastonished ; not abashed, 
not inflated ; neither awkwardness nor affectation : he feels 
that he there is the man Robert Burns ; that the " rank is 
but the guinea's stamp ; " that the celebrity is but the candle- 
light, which will show vliat man ; not, in the least, make 
him a better or other man! Alas, it may readily, unless 
he look to it, make him a tvorae man; a wretched, inflated 



26 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

wind-bag, — inflated till he burst, and there become a dead 
lion ; for whom, as some one has said, " there is no resurrec- 
tion of the body ; " worse than a living dog ! — Burns is 
admirable here. 

And yet, alas, as I have observed elsewhere, these Lion- 
hunters were the ruin and death of Burns. It was they 
that rendered it impossible for him to live ! They gath- 
ered around him in his Farm ; hindered his industry ; no 
place was remote enough from them. He could not get 
his Lionism forgotten, honestly as he was disposed to do 
so. He falls into discontents, into miseries, faults; the 
world getting ever more desolate for him; health, char- 
acter, peace of mind all gone ; — solitary enough now. It 
is tragical to think of ! These men came but to see him ; 
it was out of no sympathy with him, nor no hatred to 
him. They came to get a little amusement: they got 
their amusement; — and the Hero's life went for it! 

Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind 
of " Light-chafers," large Fire-flies, which people stick upon 
spits, and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of con- 
dition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they 
much admire. Great honor to the Fire-flies! But — ! — 

• — Heroes and Hero-Worsliip. 

CRITICAL COMMENTS. 

With all deductions, Carlyle remains the profoundest 
critic and the most dramatic imagination of modern times. 
Never was there a more striking example of that ingenium 
perfervidum long ago said to be characteristic of his coun- 
trymen. He is one of the natures, rare in these latter 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

centuries, capable of rising to a white heat; but once 
fairly kindled, he is like a three-decker on fire, and his 
shotted guns go off, as the gloAv reaches them, alike 
dangerous to friend or foe. Though he seems more and 
more to confound material with moral success, yet there 
is always something wholesome in his unswerving loyalty 
to reality, as he understands it. History, in the true 
sense, he does not and cannot write ; for he looks on 
mankind as a herd without volition and without moral 
force ; but such vivid pictures of events, such living con- 
ceptions of character, we find nowhere else in prose. . . . 

Though not the safest of guides in politics or practi- 
cal philosophy, his value as an inspirer and awakener 
cannot b6 overestimated. It is a power which belongs 
only to the highest order of minds, for it is none but 
a divine fire that can so kindle and irradiate. The debt 
due him from those who listened to the teachings of his 
prime for revealing to them what sublime reserves of 
power even the humblest may find in manliness, sincerity, 
and self-reliance, can be paid with nothing short of rever- 
ential gratitude. As a purifier of the sources whence 
our intellectual inspiration is drawn, his influence has 
been second only to that of Wordsworth, if even to his. 
Indeed he has been in no fanciful sense the continuator 
of Wordsworth's moral teaching. . . . 

The great merit of Carlyle's essays lay in a criticism 
based on wide and various study, which, careless of tra- 
dition, applied its standard to the real and not the con- 
temporary worth of the literary or other performance to 
be judged, and in an unerring eye ior that fleeting ex- 



28 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

pressioii of the moral features of character, a perception 
of which alone makes the drawing of a -coherent likeness 
possible. Their defect was a tendency, gaining strength 
with years, to confound the moral with the esthetic 
standard, and to make the value of an author's work 
dependent on the general force of his nature rather than 
on its special fitness for a given task. But, with all 
deductions, he remains the profoundest critic and the 
most dramatic imagination of modern times. His manner 
is not so well suited to the historian as to the essayist. 
He is always great in single figures and striking epi- 
sodes, but there is neither gradation nor continuity. He 
sees history, as it were, by flashes of lightning. He 
makes us acquainted with the isolated spot where we 
lia]3pen to be when the flash comes, as if by actual eye- 
sight, but there is no possibility of a comprehensive 
view. No other writer compares with him for vividness. 
AVith the gift of song, Carlyle Avould have been the 
greatest of epic poets since Homer. 

— James Russell Lowell. 

The essays on Burns and Scott are two sermons on 
life, often rambling, always full of repetition, saying, in 
Carlyle's way, what another man of equal genius and power 
could have said as vigorously, but more clearly and simply, 
therefore better-, in half the number of words. But that 
other man of equal genius and power, wherever he may be, 
has not written an essay on Burns. We must take Carlyle 
as he is ; learn to distinguish, as Jeffrey did, between dif- 
ferences that are radical and those Avhich are only formal. 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

t 

Carlyle's style was his own; in these essays, perhaps, only 
incipient Carlylese ; his genius and his earnest, right-minded 
struggle with the problems of the life of man were his own 
also. The readers of these essays should draw near to 
their writer, mind to mind, soul to soul, live with him his 
best life while they read the rhetoric that, always right- 
minded and often joined to strains of highest eloquence, 
sometimes confuses alike writer and reader. I doubt very 
much whether, after having written his essay on Burns, 
Carlyle clearly knew whether he had or had not meant 
to say that Burns should have chosen between Ellisland 
and Mount Parnassus. Sometimes we seem to be clearly 
told that he should have given himself up to the Muses 
and made poetry his only calling. At other times, we are 
told that he could not be other than he was. Carlyle, on 
the whole, preaches with deep earnestness the truth as it 
is in man. A hint in the facts of any life may set him 
off on a new burst of homily, and, though all the winds 
blow health, they do not all blow in the same direction. 

— Nicoll's Thomas Carlyle. 

Carlyle's essays are among the most valuable of his 
writings. He was the first to make the great writers of 
Germany known in England ; and his writings on the more 
illustrious figures of the epoch of the French Revolution 
— Voltaire, Diderot, Mirabeau — are models of insight into 
character, profound and discriminating estimates of men 
who had proved stumbling-blocks to British critics. The 
essays on Burns and Johnson may be said to have struck 
the keynote of all succeeding writings on these men ; while 



30 THOMAS CARLYLE. 

his criticism of Scott, which has provoked a good deal of 
hostility, is more and more coming to be generally recog- 
nized as substantially correct. The "Life of Schiller," 
though warmly praised by Goethe, who added a preface 
to the German translation of it, is not a first-rate perform- 
ance. But the "Life of Sterling" is a perfect triumph 
of literary art, far and away the best biography of its size 
in the language. — Henry Morley. 

BURNS'S PERSOXAL APPEARANCE. 

I was not much struck with Burns's first appearance, 
as I had previously heard it described. His person, though 
strong and well-knit, and much superior to what might be 
expected in a plowman, was still rather coarse in its out- 
line. His stature, from want of setting up, appeared to 
be only of the middle size, but was rather above it. His 
motions were firm and decided, and, though without any 
pretensions to grace, were at the same time so free from 
clownish restraint as to show that he had not always been 
confined to the society of his profession. His countenance 
was not of that elegant cast which is most frequent among 
the upper ranks, but was manly and intelligent, and marked 
by a thoughtful gravity which shaded at times into stern- 
ness. In his large dark eye the most striking index of 
his genius resided. It was full of mind, and would have 
been singularly expressive under the management of one who 
could employ it with more art for the purpose of expression. 

He was plainly but properly dressed, in a style mid- 
way between the holiday costume of a farmer and that 
of the company with which he now associated. His black 



INTRODUCTION. . 31 

hair, without powder at a time when it was very generally 
worn, was tied behind, and spread upon his forehead. Upon 
the whole, from his person, physiognomy, and dress, had 
I met him near a seaport, and been required to guess his 
condition, I should have probably conjectured him to be 
the master of a merchant vessel of the most respectable class. 

In no part of his manner was there the slightest de- 
gree of affectation, nor could a stranger have suspected, 
from anything in his behavior or conversation, that he 
had been for some months the favorite of the fashionable 
circles of a metropolis. 

In conversation he was powerful. His conceptions and 
expression were of corresponding vigor, and on all subjects 
were as remote as possible from commonplace. Though 
somewhat authoritative, it was in a way which gave little 
offense, and was readily imputed to his inexperience in 
those modes of smoothing dissent and softening assertion 
Avhich are important characteristics of polished manners. 

After breakfast I requested him to communicate some of 
his unpublished pieces, and he recited his farewell song to 
the Banks of Ayr, introducing it with a description of the 
circumstances in which it was composed, more striking than 
the poem itself. I paid particular attention to his recita- 
tion, which was plain, slow, articulate, and forcible, but 
without any eloquence or art. He did not always lay the 
emphasis Avith propriety, nor did he humor the sentiment 
by the variations of his voice. He was standing, during 
the time, with his face to the window ; to which, and not 
to his auditors, he directed his eye. 

— Professor Walker. 



32 



THOMAS CAELYLE. 



CARLYLE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

[The student may verify and complete these imperfect lists.] 



17135, Dec. 4. Born at Eecle- 
fechau, Dumfriesshire, 
Scotland. 



1800. At village school. 



1805. At school at Annan, on 
Solway Firth. 



1809. Walks eighty miles to 
Edinburgh, and enters 
the University. 



1814. LeavesUniversityUefore 
graduation. — Becomes 
teacher of mathemat- 
ics at Annan. 

1816. Master of .school in 
Kirkaldy. 



1818. Studies law. 

1819. Settles in Edinburgh. 

1820. Suffers from dyspepsia. 

— German studies. 



1822. Article on Faust in 

Edinburgh Revieiv. — 
Tutor. 

1823. Life of Schiller in Lon- 

don Magazine. 



Contemporary Literature and Events. 



1798. Lyrical Ballads published by Cole- 
ridge and Wordsworth. — Battle of 
the Nile. 

1800. Union of Great Britain and Ireland. 

— Malta surrendered to Engli.sh. 

1801. First regular census of Great Britain. 

— French army in Egypt surren- 
ders. — Battle of Copenhagen. 

1802. Peace of Amiens. — Edinburgh Re- 

vieiv begun. — Australia colonized. 

1803. Emerson boru. 

1805. Battle of Trafalg;i«^ — Scott's Lay 

of the Lust Minstrel. 
180G. Death of Pitt and Fox. — Moore's 

Epistles, Odes and Other Poems. 

1807. Slave-trade abolished. — Two volumes 

of PoejHS by Wordsworth. — Byron's 
Hours of Idleness. 

1808. Scott's Marmion. — Peninsular War 

begins. 

1809. Abraham Lincoln born. — Campbell's 

Gertrude of Wyoming. 

1812. War between America and England. 

— Byron's Childe Harold (2 cantos) . 

1813. Shelley's Queen i/«6. — Southey 

made poet laureate. 

1814. Scott's Waverley Novels. — BvUlsh 

raid on Washington. — Words- 
worth's Excursion. 

1815. Waterloo. 

1816. Byron's Siege of Corinth, Parisina. 

— Shelley's Alastor. — Bryant's 
Thanatopsis. — Byron abandons 
England and wife. 

1817. Moore's Lulla Rookh. 

1818. Keats publishes Endymion. 

1819. First steamship on the Atlantic. 

1820. Keats goes to Italy. — Byron, Shel- 

ley, Moore, Lamb, and the "Lake 
Poets," all writing. 

1821. Keats dies. 

1822. Cabs first used in London. — Words- 

worth's Ecclesiastical Sketches in 
Ve7'se. 



INTRODUCTION. 



33 



1824. Translatiou of Wilhelin 
Meisti'r. 

ISlio. Life of Schiller, iu book 
iorm. 

1826. Marries Jaue Welsh. 

18'27. SpeciDiens of German 
Romance. 

1828. Settled on wife's inher- 
ited farm at Craigeu- 
puttoeh, Dumfries- 
shire. — Essay ou 
Burns. 

1830. Sartor Kesartus grow- 
ing. 

1833. Sartor Resartus begins 

to appear iu Fraser's 
Mayuzine. 

1834. Removes to Chelsea, 

London suburb. 

1835. At work ou The French 

Revolution. 
183(3. At work on The French 

Rerolution. 
18.37. The French Revolution. 

— Ijectures. 



1840. Chartism. 

1841. Heroes and Hero-Wor- 

ship. 



1843. Past and Present. 



1845. Oliner Cromwell's Letters 
and Speeches. 



/■ 



1850. Latter-day Pamphlets. 



ClINTEMPOKABY LiTEKATI'RK AND EVENTS. 

1824. Byron dies at Missolonghi, Greece. 

Irving's Tales of a T?-aveler. 

1825. Macaulay's Essay on Milton. 

182(i. Cooper's Ixtst of the Mohicans. 

1827. Battle of Navarino. 

1828. Duke of Wellington minister. 



1830, 

1832, 
1833, 



1834. 



1835. 



1836. 
18^7. 

1840. 
1S41. 

1842. 

1843. 
1844. 

1845. 



William IV. crowned. — Stephenson's 
" Rocket " locomotive. 

Walter Scott die.s. 

Slavery abolished iu the British colo- 
nies. — Arthur Hallam dies. 

Bancroft's U. S. History. Vol. I. — 
Buhver's Last Days of Pompeii. — 
Coleritlge dies. 

Wordsworth's Yarrow Revisited, and 
Other Poems. 

Dickens's Pickwick Papers. — 
Holmes's Poems. 

Victoria becomes Queen. — Haw- 
thorne's Twice-told T(des. — Pres- 
cott's Ferdinand and Isabella. — 
Whittier's Poems. 

Penny Postage established in Eng- 
land. 

Browning's Pippa Passes. — Emer- 
son's Fssays. — Massacre of Eng- 
lish army in Afghanistan. — Pho- 
tography. 

Tennyson's Poems, 2 vols. — China 
compelled to open her ports to 
trade. 

Ruskin's Modern Painters, Vol. I. — 
Southey dies. 

Elizabeth Barrett's (afterwards Mrs. 
Browning) Poems. — Campbell 
dies. 

Poe's Raven and Other Poems. 



1846. Jews admitted to municipal offices in 
England. — Famine iu Ireland. — 
Anresthetics. — Sewing-machines. 
— Repeal of the Corn Laws. — Free 
Trade in England. 

Longfellow's "Evangeline. — Thack- 
eray's Vanity /'(«';•. —Tennyson's 
Princess. 

Lowell's Bic/low Papers. — Chartists 
aiul Irish rising suppressed. 

Parkman's California. 

Tennyson marries. — His /;/, Mrmo- 
ri!«;». — Becomes poet laureate. 



1847. 



1848. 

1849. 
1850. 



34 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



1851. Life of John Sterling. 



1858. History of Frederick the 
Great, first two vols. 



1865. History of Frederick the 

Great completed. 

1866. Lord Rector at Edin- 

burgh. — Wife dies. 

1867. Shooting Niagara. 

1875. Early Kings of Norway . 
1881, Feb. 4. Dies. 



Contemporary Literature and Events. 

1851. First "World's Fair." —Herbert 
Spencer's Social Statics. 

1854. The Crimean War. 

1855. Capture of Sebastopol. 



1859. Darwin's Origin of Species. — Tenny- 
son's Idyls of the King. 

1861. George Eliot's Silas Marner. — Amer- 
ican Civil War. 



1872. The Geneva Arbitration Congress, 
1877. Victoria made Empress of India. 



INTRODUCTION. 



3^7 



BURNS CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

[Th" student may verify a)id complete these imperfect lists.] 



1759, Jan. 25. Born 2 m. S. of 
Ayr, in the mid.st of 
a storm that wrecked 
the house. — Eldest of 
six children. — Father 
was William Burness, 
or, as he wrote it, 
Burues. 



1705. Sent to school with his 
brother Gilbert for a 
few months at Alloway 
Mill. 

1766. Family removes to 
Mount Oliphant to re- 
side on a leased farm, 
an unfortunate step. 



1774. Composes his first song, 
eTititled Huttdsome 
Nell. 



I 



Contemporary Literature and Events. 
1759. Johnson writes Rasselas ; Sterne, 
Tristram Shandy, I. and II. — 
Victory of Quebec gives England 
Canada. 



1700. George III. ascends the throne. — 
Wedgwood establishes his famous 
potteries. 

1762. Goldsmith's collected essays entitled 
The Citizen of the World. — Mac- 
pherson publishes Poems of Os- 
sian. — Johnson pensioned, and 
meets Boswell. — Parliament enacts 
stringent laws to punish bribery 
of voters. 

1703. Canada is ceded by France to Brit- 

ain. — John Wilkes violently at- 
tacks the government. 

1704. Johnson founds club. — Goldsmith 

publishes The Traveler. — Har- 
greaves invents a spinning jenny. 

1705. Percy publishes Reliques of Ancient 

Poe<?7/. — Blackstone's Law Com- 
mentaries published. —Stamp Act 
passed. — Watt's steam engine pro- 
duced. 
1760. Goldsmith publishes The Vicar of 
Wakefield. — Stamp Act repealed." 

1708. Gray's collected poems, first edition, 

published. — Goldsmith's The Good- 
natured Man is acted. — Arkwright 
invents a spinning machine. 

1709. Robertson's History of C/nn-les V. 

published. — Letters of "Junius " 
appear. 

1770. Goldsmith's Deserted Village. — Vm- 

brellas first used. 

1771. Debates in Parliament first regularly 

reported. 

1772. Pressing to death abolished by law. 

1773. Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. 

— Goethe's Gcitz von Berlichingen. 

— Boston Tea Party. 

1774. Poet Ferguson dies insane, greatly 

admired by Burns. — Four " Intol- 
erable Acts" by Parliament to 



Ob 



EGBERT BURNS. 



1776. Writes the foreboding 
song, I dreain'd I lay. 



nil. Family removes ten 
miles to Lochlea, Tar- 
bolton Parish. 

1778. Spends summer at Kir- 

koswald in Carriek, 
learning mensuration. 

1779. Writes Winter, a Dirge, 

Death of Poor Mailie, 
John Barleycorn. 



1781 



1783. 



Several months at Irvine, 
learning to dress tlax. 

— Letter to his father. 

— Tired of life. 



Joins the Freemasons. — 
Letters on Love. 

1784. Father dies, and is 

buried in the Kirk- 
yard of Alloway. — 
Composes Addre.s.'; to 
the De'il. Takes farm 
of Mossgiel, 112 acres, 
at £90 rent. 

1785. Writes The Holy Fair, 

Holy Willie's Prayer, 
Halloween, The Cot- 
ter's Saturday Night. 

1786. First edition of Poems, 

('hie fly in the Scot- 
tisJi Dialect. — Visits 
Edinburgh. — Social 
recognition. 

1787. At Edinburgh. — Second 

edition of poems in 
April. — Contributes 
original and copied 
songs to J. Johnson's 
Museum. — Traveling 
in Scotland. 



Contemporary Literature and Events. 
punish Americans. — Howard's 
prison reforms. — Priestley dis- 
covers oxygen. 

1775. Johnson's Ta.tation no Tyranny ]}\\\)- 

lished. — Burke's speech on Von- 
ciliation luith America. — Sheri- 
dan's The Rivals acted. — The 
American Revolutionary War be- 
gins at Lexington and Concord. 

1776. Adam Smith publishes his great 

work, The Wealth of Nations. — 
Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Vol. I. 
— Jefferson's Declaration of Amer- 
ican Independence. 
nil. Sheridan's School for Scandal. 



1778. Roman Catholic Relief Act. 



1779. Sheridan's farce, The Cntic. — Act 

for relief of dissenting ministers 
and school-masters. 

1780. Johnson's Lives of the Poets. — 

Jeremy Bentham publishes. — Sun- 
day - schools begun. — Ducking- 
stool disused. — The Lord George 
Gordon riots. 

1781. Schiller's Robbers. — E. Darwin's 

The Botanical Garden. — Corn- 
wallis surrendered to Washington 
at Yorktown. 

1782. Cowper's John Gilpin, 

1783. American independence recognized. 

— Treaties of Paris and Versailles. 

1784. Cowper begins his Traiislation. of 

Homer. — Johnson dies. — Mail- 
coaches introduced. — Boai'd of 
Control established for India. 



1785. Cowper's Tlie Task published. 
The London Times established. 



1786. Great trial of Warren Hastings. — 
Eloquence of Burke. 



1787.. James Johnson's Museum of Scot- 
tish Song. — Paine's The Rights of 
Man. 



INTRODUCTION. 



37 



1788. Takes farm, Ellisland. — 

Marries Jeau Armour 
in April. 

1789. Many letters, etc. — Ad- 

dress to the Toothache. 
. — Appointed excise- 
man. 

1790. Publishes Tarn o' Shun- 

ter. 

1791. Moves to Dumfries. — 

Joins Dumfries Volun- 
teers. — Dabbles in 
politics. — Seizes a 
smuggling craft, and 
sends carronades to 
French revolutionists. 



1793. Fourth edition of his 
poems. — Political of- 
fenses reproved by 
Board of Excise. 

179-4. Health impaired. — In- 
temperate ? 

1795. Sinking. — Poverty. — 

Distress. 

1796. Dies July 21 ; buried 

July 25. 



Contemporary Litkrathrh and Events. 

1788. Gibbon publishes the conclusion of 

his great History. 

1789. William Blake's Songs of Innocence. 



1790. Grose's Antiquities of Scotland. — 

Pye poet laureate. — Burke's Re- 
flections on t/ie French Revolution. 

1791. Cowper's Tran.dation of Homer is- 

sued. — Boswell's Life of Johnson. 



1792. Scott admitted to the bar. — Rogers's 

Pleasures of Memory. — Order of 
"United Irishmen." — Death of 
Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

1793. Wordsworth's Descriptive Sketches, 

and .in Evening Walk. — War with 
France. — First patented fire en- 
gine. 



179G. Coleridge's The Watcliman periodi- 
cal. — Southey's .Joan of Arc. — 
Scott's translation of Biirger's 
Lenore. 




ROBERT BURNS. 



I 



^- -' /i 



'^^ -^ 



CAKLYLE'S ESSAY ON BUENS. 

I. 

In the modern arrangements of society, it is no un-* 
common thing that a man of genins must, like Butler/ 
" ask for bread and receive a stone ; " for, in spite of on 
^ grand maxim of supply and demand, it is by no means 
the highest excellence that men are most forward to recog- 5 
nize. The inventor of a spinning jenny ^ is pretty sure o^.i 
his reward in his OAvn day; but the writer of a true poem,, 
like the apostle ^ of a true religion, is nearly as sure of the 
contrary. We do not know whether it is not an aggra- 
, -iiation,lpf the injustice, that there is generally a posthumous 10 
'^^^^retfil3ution.^ Robert Burns," in the course of ISTature, might 
yet have J^en living ; but his short life was spent in toil 
and 'penury ; and he died, in the prime of his manhood,^ 
miserable and neglected : and yet already a brave ^ mauso- 
leum ^ shines ^'^ over his dust, and more than one splendid 15 
monument has been reared in other places to his fame ; the 
street where he languished in poverty is called by his name ; 
the highest personages in our literature have been proud to 
appear as his commentators and admirers; and here is the;.' 
sixth^^ narrative of his Life that has been given to the 20 
world ! 

Mr. Lockhart^- thinks it necessary to apologize for this 
new attempt on such a_^ subject: but his readers, we believe, 
will readily acquit him ; or, at worst, will censure only the 
performance of his task, not the choice of it. The charac- 25 

39 



40 carlyle's essay Li- 

ter of Burns, indeed, is a tlieme that cannot easily become 
either trite or exhausted; and will probably gain rather 
than lose in its dimensions by the distance to which it is 
removed by Time. No man, it has been said, is a hero to 

5 his valet ; ^ and this is probably true ; but the fault is at 
least as likely to be the valet's as the hero's. For it is 
certain, that to the vulgar eye few things are wonderful 
that are not distant. It is difficult for men to believe that 
the man, the mere man whom they see, nay, perhaps pain- 

10 fully feel, toiling at their side through the poor jostlings of 
existence, can be made of finer clay than themselves. Sup- 
pose that some dining acquaintance of Sir Thomas Lucy's - 
and neighbor of John-a-Combe's, had snatched an hour or 
two from the preservation of his game, and written us a 

15 Life of Shakespeare ! What dissertations should we not 
have had, — not on Hamlet and The Tempest, but on the 
wool-trade, and deer-stealing, and the libel and vagrant 
laws ; and how the I'mi^hgr became a Player ; and how Sir 
Thomas and Mr. John had Christian bowels,'^ and did not 

20 push him to extremities ! In like manner, we believe, with 
respect to Burns, that till the companions of his pilgrimage, 
the Honorable Excise Commissioners, and the Gentlemen of 
the Caledonian Hunt,'* and the Dumfries Aristocracy, and 
all the Squires and Earls, equally with the Ayr Writers, 

25 and the New and Old Light Clergy,^ whom he had to do 
with, shall have become invisible in the darkness of the 
Past, or visible only by light borrowed from his juxtapo- 
sition, it will be difficult to measure" him by any true 
standard, or to estimate what he really was and did, in the 

:^0 eighteenth century, for his country and the world. It will 
be difficult, we say, but still a fair problem for literary his- 
torians; and repeated attempts will give us repeated ap- 
proximations. 

His former Biographers have done something, no doubt, 

35 but by no means a great deal, to assist us. Dr. Currie '' and 



I.] ON BUKNS. 41 

Mr. Walker,' the principal of these writers, have both, we 
think, mistaken one essentially important thing : Their own 
and the world's true relation to their author, and the style 
in which it became such men to think and to speak of such 
a man. Dr. Currie loved the poet truly ; more perhaps than 5 
he avowed to his readers, or even to himself ; yet he every- 
where introduces him with a certain patronizing, apologetic 
air; as if the polite public might think it strange and half 
unwarrantable that he, a man of science, a scholar and gen- 
tleman, should do such honor to a rustic. In all this, how- lO 
ever, Ave readily admit that his fault was not want of love, 
but weakness of faith ; and regret that the first and kindest 
of all our poet's biographers should not have seen farther, 
or believed more boldly what he saw. Mr. Walker offends 
more deeply in the same kind: and both err alike in pre- ir 
senting us with a detached catalogue of his several supposed 
attributes, virtues, and vices instead of a delineation of the 
resulting character as a living unity. This, however, is not 
painting a portrait ; - but gauging the length and breadth of 
the several features, and jotting down their dimensions in 20 
arithmetical ciphers. Nay, it is not so much as that : for we 
are yet to learn by what arts or instruments the mind could 
be so measured and gauged. 

Mr. Lockhart, we are happy to say, has avoided both these 
errors. He uniformly treats Burns as the high and remark- 2.") 
able man the public voice has now pronounced him to be : 
and in delineating him, he has avoided the method of sepa- 
rate generalities, and rather sought, for characteristic inci- 
dents, habits, actions, sayings ; in a word, for aspects which 
exhibit the whole man, as he looked and lived among his 3) 
fellows. The book accordingly, with all its deficiencies, 
gives more insight, we think, into the true character of 
Burns, than any prior biography : though, being written on 
the very popular and condensed scheme of an article for 
Constable's Miscellany,'' it has less depth than we could 35 



42 carlyle's essay [i. 

have wished and expected from a writer of such power; 

and contains rather more, and more multifarious, quotations 

than belong of right to an original production. Indeed, 

Mr. Lockhart's own writing is generally so good, so clear, 

:, direct, and nervous that we seldom wish to see it making 

I place for another man's. However, the spirit of the work 

' is throughout candid, tolerant, and anxiously conciliating ; 

! compliments and praises are liberally distributed, on all 

hands, to great and small ; and, as Mr. Morris Birkbeck ^ 

10 observes of the society in the backwoods- of America, 

i "The courtesies of polite life are never lost sight of for 

a moment.'- But there are better things than these in the 

volume ; and we can safely testify, not only that it is easily 

and pleasantly read a first time, but may even be without 

!') difficulty read again. 

Nevertheless, we are far from thinking that the problem 
of Burns's Biography has yet been adequately solved. We 
do not allude so much to deficiency of facts or documents, 
— though of these we are still every day receiving some 

.) fresh accession, — as to the limited and imperfect ajiplica- 
tion of them to the great end of Biography.^ Our notions 
upon this subject may perhaps appear extravagant ; but if 
an individual is really of consequence enough to have his 
life and character recorded for public remembrance, we 

■5 have always been of opinion that the public ought to be 
made acquaint-ed with all the inward springg. and. relations 
of his charactej. How did the world * and man's life, from 
his particular position, represent themselves to his mind? 
How did coexisting circumstances modify him from with- 

!0 out ; how did he modify these from within ? With what 
C endeavors and what efficacy rule over them ; with what re- 
sistance and what suffering sink under them ? Iflii one word,)| 
what and how produced was the effect of societv on him;' 
what and how produced was his effect on society i He yvhoj 

35 should answer these questions, in regard to any individual, 



II.] 



ON BURNS. - 43 



10 



would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection in Biog- 
raphy. Few individuals, indeed, can deserve such a study ; 
and many lives will be written, and, for the gratihcation of 
innocent curiosity, ought to be written, and read and for- 
srotten, which are not in this sense biographies. But Burns, 
if we mistake not, is one of these few individuals ; and such 
a study, at least with such a result, he has not yet obtained. 
Our own contributions to it, we are aware, can be but scanty 
and feeble; but we offer them with good will, and trust 
they may meet Avith acceptance from those they are in- 
tended for. 

II. 

> Burns first came upon the world as a prodigy ; ^ and was, 
in that character, entertained by it, in the usual fashion, 
with loud, vague, tumultuous wonder, speedily subsiding 
into censure and neglect ; till his early and most mournful 15 
death' again awakened an enthusiasm for him, which, espe- 
cially as there was now nothing to be done,^ and much to be 
spoken, has prolonged itself even to our own time. It is 
true, the " nine days " "* have long since elapsed ; and the 
very continuance of this clamor proves that Burns was no 20 
vulgar wonder. Accordingly, even in sober judgments, 
where, as years passed by, he has^ come to rest more and 
more exclusively on his own intnnsic_merits, and may now 
be Avell-nigh shorn of that casual radiance, he appears not 
only as a true British poet, but as one of the most consider- 25 
able British men of the eighteenth century. Let it not be / 
objected that he did little. He did much, if we consider \ 
where and how. If the work performed was small, we--' 
must remember that he had his very materials to discover ; ^ 
for the metal he worked in lay hid under the desert moor, 30 
where no eye but his had guessed its existence ; and we may 
almost say, that with his own hand he had to construct the 
tools for fashioning it. For he found himself in deepest 



44 carlyle's essay [n. 

obscurity, without help, without instructiou, without model ; 
or with models only of the meanest sort. An educated man 
stands, as it were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and 
magazine, filled with all the weapons and engines which 

5 man's skill has been able to devise from the earliest time ; 
and he works, accordingly, with a strength borrowed from 
all past ages. How different is his state who stands on the 
outside of that storehouse, and feels that its gates must be 
stormed, or remain forever shut against him ! His means 

10 are the commonest and rudest; the mere work done is no 
measure of his strength. A dAvarf behind his steam engine 
may remove mountains; but no dwarf Avill hew them down 
Avith a pickax ; and he must be a Titan ^ that hurls them 
abroad with his arms. 

15 y It is in this last shape that Burns presents himself. 
Born in an age the most prosaic Britain had yet seen, and 
in a condition the most disadvantageous, where his mind, if 
it accomplished aught, must accomplish it under the pres- 
sure of- continual bodily toil, nay, of penury and desponding 

20 apprehension of the worst evils, and with no furtherance 
but such knowledge as dwells in a poor man's hut, and the 
rhymes of a Ferguson" or Ramsay^fo^^^is standard of 
beauty, he sinks not under all these impeclimems : through 
the fogs and darkness of that obscure region, his lynx eye 

25 discerns the true relations of the world and human life ; he 
grows into intellectual strength, and trains himself into 
intellectual expertness. Impelled by the expansive move- 
ment of his own irrepressible soul, he struggles forward 
into the general view; and with haughty modesty lays 

30 down before us, as the fruit of his labor, a gift, which Time 
has now pronounced imperishable. Add to all this, that 
his darksome, drudging childhood'* and youth was by far 
the kindliest era of his Avhole life ; and that he died in his 
thirty-seventh year : and then ask. If it be strange that his 

35 poems are imperfect, and of small extent, or that his genius 



II.] ON BURNS. 45 

attained no mastery in its art ? Alas, his Sun slione ' as 
through a tropical tornado ; and the pale Shadow of Death 
eclipsed it at noon ! Shrouded in such baleful vapors, the 
genius of Burns was never seen in clear azure splendor, 
enlightening the world : but some beams from it did, by 5 
fits, pierce through ; and it tinted those clouds with rainbow 
and orient colors into a glory and stern grandeur, which 
men silently gazed on with wonder and tears ! ^^ — n- 

^ We are anxious not to exaggerate ; for it is exjroiffion^*^ ^ ^ 
rather than admiration that our readers require of us here ; 10 
and yet to avoid some tendency to that side is no easy 
matter. We love Burns, and we pity him; and love and 
pity are prone to magnify. Criticism, it is sometimes 
thought, should be a cold business ; ' we are not so sure of 
this ; but, at all events, our concern with Burns is not ex- 15 
clusively that of critics. True and genial as his poetry 
must appear, it is not chiefly as a poet/"^ bi;t as a man, that 
he interests and affects us. He was often advised to write 
a tragedy : ^ time and means were not lent him for this ; 
but through life he enacted a tragedy, and one of the deep- 20 
est. We question whether the Avorld has since witnessed 
so utterly sad a scene ; whether Napoleon himself, left to 
brawl with Sir Hudson Lowe^ and perish on his rock, 
" amid the melancholy main," " presented* to the reflecting 
mind such a " spectacle of pity and fear " as did this intrin- 25 
sically nobler, gentler, and perhaps greater soul, wasting 
itself away in a hopeless struggle with base entanglements, 
which coiled closer and closer round him, till only death 
opened him an outlet. I Conquerors are a class of men with 
whom, for most part, the world could well dispense ; nor 30 
can the hard intellect, the unsympathizing loftiness, and 
high but selfish enthusiasm of such persons, inspire us in 
general with any affection; at best it, may excite amaze- 
ment ; and their fall, like that of a pyramid,' will be beheld 
with a certain sadness and awe. iBut a true Poet, a man in ."5 



46 caelyle's essay [u. 

whose heart resides some effluence of Wisdom, some tone of 
the " Eternal Melodies," ^ is the most precious gift - that can 
be bestowed oiTa generation : we see in him a freer, purer 
development of whatever is noblest in ourselves ; his life is 

5 a rich lesson to us ; and we mourn his death as that of a 
benefactor who loved and taught us. 

?' Such a gift had Nature, in her bounty, bestowed on us in 
Robert Burns ; but with queen-like indifference she cast it 
fronj her hand, like a thing of no moment ; and it was de- 

10 faced and torn asunder, as an idle bauble, before Ave recog- 
nized it. To the ill-starred Burns was given the power of 
making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding 
his own life was not given. Destiny, — for so in our igno- 
rance we must speak, — his faults, the faults of others, 

15 proved too hard for him; and that spirit, which might 
have soared could it but have walked, soon sank to the 
dust, its glorious faculties trodden under foot in the blos- 
som ; and^ died, we may almost say, without ever having 
lived. And so kind and warm a soul ; so full of inborn 

20 riches, of love to all living and lifeless things ! How his 
heart flows out in sympathy over universal Nature, and in 
her bleakest provinces discerns a beauty and a meaning ! 
The '^ Daisy " ^ falls not unheeded under his plowshare ; nor 
the ruined nest of that "wee, cowering, timorous beastie,"^ 

25 cast forth, after all its provident pains, to " thole "' the sleety 
dribble® and cranreuch^ cauld."* The "hoar visage" of 
Winter delights him ; he dwells with a sad and oft-returning 
fondness in these scenes of solemn desolation ; but the voice 
of the tempest becomes an anthem to his ears ; he loves to 

30 walk in the sounding woods,^ for " it raises his thoughts to 
Hi7n that walketh on. the ivings of the wiiuV^ ^" A true Poet- 
soul ; for it needs but to be struck, and the sound it yields 
will be music ! But observe him chiefly as he mingles with 
his brother men. What warm, all-comprehending fellow- 

35 feeling ; what trustful, boundless love ; what generous ex- 



11.] ON BURNS. 47 

agge ration of the object loved! His rustic friend, his 
nut-brown maiden/ are no longer mean and homely, but a 
hero and a queen, whom he prizes as the paragons - of Earth. 
The rough scenes of Scottish life, not seen by him in any 
Arcadian ^ illusion, biit in the rude contradiction, in the 5 
smoke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still lovely to him : 
Poverty is indeed his companion, but Love also, and Cour- 
age ; the simple feelings, the worth, the nobleness, that dwell 
iinder the straw roof, are dear and venerable to his heart : 
and thus over the lowest provinces of man's existence he 10 
pours the glory of his own soiil ; and they rise, in shadow 
and sunshine, softened and brightened into a beauty which 
other eyes discern not in the highest.'' He has a just self- 
consciousness, which too often degenerates into pride ; yet 
it is a noble pride,^ for defense, not for offense ; no cold sus- 15 
picious feeling, but a frank and social one. The Peasant 
Poet bears himself, we might say, like a King in exile : he 
is cast among the low, and feels himself equal to the high- 
est ; yet he claims no rank, that none may be disputed to 
him. The forward he can repel, the supercilious'' he can 20 
subdue ; pretensions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail 
with him ; there is a fire in that dark eye, under which the 
'• insolence of condescension " cannot thrive. In his abase- 
ment, in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the 
majesty' of Poetry and Manhood. And yet, far as he feels 25 
himself above common men, he wanders not apart from 
them, but mixes warmly in their interests ; nay, throws him- 
self into their arms, and, as it were, entreats them to love 
him. It is moviiig to see how, in his darkest despondency, 
this proud being still seeks relief from"* friendship; un- 30 
])Osoms himself, often to the unworthy; and, amid tears, 
strains to Ids glowing heart a heart that knows only the 
name of friendship. And yet he was " quick to learn ; " a 
man of keen vision, before whom common disguises afforded 
no concealment. His understanding saw through the hollow- 35 



48 . carlyle's essay [m. 

ness even of aeeoiuplislied deceivers ; but there was a gener- 
ous credulity ' in liis heart. And so did our Peasant show 
himself among us; "a soul like an .Eolian- harp, in whose 
strings the vulgar wind, as it passed through them, changed 
5 itself into articulate melody." And this was he for whom 
the world found no fitter business than quarreling with 
smugglers and vintners, computing excise dues upon tallow, 
and gauging ale barrels ! In such toils was that mighty 
Spirit sorrowfully wasted : and a hundred years may pass 
10 on before another such is given us to waste. 

III. 

All that remains of Burns, the Writings he has left, seem 
to us, as we hinted above, no more than a poor mutilated 
fraction of what was in him ; lirief, broken glimpses '^ of a 
genius that could never show itself complete ; that wanted 

15 all things for completeness : culture, leisure, true effort, nay, 
even length of life. His poems are, Avith scarcely any ex- 
ception, mere occasional effusions, poured forth with little 
premeditation ; expressing, by such means as offered, the 
passion, opinion, or humor of the hour. Never in one in- 

20 stance was it permitted him to grapple with any subject 
with the full collection of his strength, to fuse and mold it 
in the concentrated fire of his genius. To try by the strict 
rules of Art such imperfect fragments would be at once 
unprofitable and unfair.'' Nevertheless, there is something 

25 in tliese poems, marred and defective as they are, which for- 
bids the most fastidious student of poetry to pass them by. 
Some sort • of enduring quality they must have ; for, after 
fifty years of the wildest -vicissitudes in poetic taste, they 
still continue to be read ; nay, are read more ' and more 

30 eagerly, more and more extensively ; and this not only by 
literary virtuosos,'"' and that class upon whom transitory 
causes operate most strongly, but by all classes, down to the 



III.] ON BURNS. 49 

most hard, unlettered and tnily natural class, who read little, 
• and especially no poetry, except because they hud pleasure 
in it. The grounds of so singular and wide a popularity, 
which extends, in a literal sense, from the palace to the hut,^ 
and over all regions where the English tongue is spoken, are 5 
well worth inquiring into. After every just deduction, it 
seems to imply some rare excellence in these works. What 
is that excellence ? ^,, u UXc(.,-J .i (^<a-^-vv/^ 

// To answer this question will not lead us far. The excel- 
lence of Burns is, indeed, among the rarest, whether in lo 
poetry or prose ; but, at the same time, it is plain and easily 
recognized: his Sincerity,' his indisputable air of Truth. 
Here are no fabulous woes or joys ; no hollow fantastic sen- 
timentalities ; no Aviredrawn refinings, either in thought or 
feeling : the passion that is traced before us has glowed in 15 
a living heart ; the opinion he utters has risen in his own 
understanding, and been a light to his own steps. He does 
not write from hearsay, but from sight and experience ; it is 
the scenes that he has lived and labored amidst, that he de- 
scribes : those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have 20 
kindled beautiful emotions in his soul, noble thoughts, and 
definite resolves ; and he speaks forth what is in him, not 
from any outward call of vanity or interest, but because his 
heart is too full to be silent. He speaks it with such melody 
and modulation as he can, "in homely rustic jingle; " but it 25 
is his own, and genuine. This is the grand secret for find- 
ing readers and retaining them : let him who would move 
and convince others be first moved and convinced him- 
self. Horace's ^ rule. Si vis meflere,* is applicable in a wider 
sense than the literal one. To every poet, to every writer, 30 
we might say. Be true, if you would be believed. Let a 

.an but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, 
i i)^' emotion, the actual condition of his own heart ; and other 

lien, so strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sym- 
pc thy, i.iust and will give heed to him. In culture, in ex- 35 



50 carlyle's essay [m. 

tent of view, we may stand above the speaker, or below 
him ; but in either case, his words, if they are earnest and 
sincere, will find some response within us ; for, in spite of all 
casual varieties in outward raidv or inward, as face answers 

5 to face, so does the heart of man to man. 

/^This may appear a very simple principle, and one which 

Burns had little merit in discovering. True, the discovery 

is easy enough : but the practical appliance is not easy ; is 

indeed the fundamental difficulty which all poets have to 

10 strive with, and wliich scarcely one in the hundred ever fairly 
surmounts. A head too dull to discriminate the true from 
the false ; a heart too dull to love the one at all risks, and 
to hate the other in spite of all temptations, are alike fatal 
to a writer. With either, or, as more commonly happens, 

15 with both of these deficiencies, combine a love of distinction, 
a wish to be original which is seldom wanting, and we 
have Affectation,-' the bane of literature, as Cant,- its elder 
brother, is of morals. How often does^ the one and the 
other front us, in poetry, as in life ! Great poets themselves 

20 are not always free from this vice ; nay, it is precisely on a 
certain sort and degree of greatness that it is most commonly 
ingrafted. A strong effort after excellence will sometimes 
solace itself with a mere shadow of success ; he who has much 
to unfold, will sometimes unfold it imperfectly. Byron,^ for 

25 instance, was no common man : yet if Ave examine his 
poetry with this view, we shall find it far enough from 
faultless. Generally speaking, we should say that it is not 
true. He refreshes us, not with the divine fountain, but 
too often with vulgar strong waters,^ stimulating indeed to 

30 the taste, but soon ending in dislike, or even nausea. Are 
his Harolds and Giaours,® we would ask, real men; we 
mean, poetically consistent and conceivable men? Do not 
these characters, does not the character of their author, 
which more or less shines through them all, rather appear a 

35 thing put on for the occasion; no natural or possiblf ^node 



in.] ON BURNS. 61 

of being, but something intended to look mucli grander than 
nature ? Surely, all these storinful agonies, this volcanic 
heroism, superhuman contempt, and moody desperation, 
with so much scowling and teeth-gnashing, and other sul- 
phurous humor, is more like the brawling of a player in 5 
some paltry tragedy, which is ,to last three hours, than the 
bearing of a man in the business of life, which is to last 
threescore and ten years. To our minds there is a taint of 
this sort, something which we should call theatrical, false, 
affected,^ in every one of these otherwise so powerful pieces, lo 
Perhaps Don Juan, especially the latter parts of it, is the 
only thing approachiiig to a sincere work, he ever Avrote ; the 
only work where he showed himself, in any measure, as he 
was ; and seemed so intent on his subject as, for moments, 
to forget himself. Yet Byron hated this vice ; we believe, 15 
heartily detested it : nay, he had declared formal war against 
it in words. So difficult is it even for the strongest to make 
this primary attainment, which might seem the simplest of 
all : to read its oivn consciousness ivithout mistakes,- without 
errors involuntary or Avillful ! We recollect no poet of 20 
Burns's susceptibility who comes before us from the first, 
and abides with us to the last, with such a total want of 
affectation. He is an honest man, and an honest writer. 
In his successes and his failures, in his greatness and his 
littleness, he is ever clear, simple, true, and glitters with no 25 
luster but his o^. We reckon this to be a great virtue ; to V 

be, in fact, tke root of most other virtues, literary as well as -, •"■^'*' 
moral. K .\V-^>-^ \ > - ^ .i-c-*-~ 

/^Here, however, let us say, it is to the Poetry of Burns that 
we now allude ; to those writings which he had time to med- 30 
itate, and where no special reason existed to warp his critical 
feeling, or obstruct his endeavor to fulfill it. Certain of 
his Letters, and other fractions of prose composition, by no 
means deserve this praise. Here, doubtless, there is not the 
same natural truth of style ; but on the contrary, something 35 



52 carlyle's essay [m. 

not only stiff, but strained and twisted ; a certain high-flown, 
inflated tone ; tlie stilting emphasis of which contrasts ill 
with the firmness and rugged simplicity of even his poorest 
verses. Thus no man, it would appear, is altogether un- 
5 affected. Does not Shakespeare himself^ sometimes pre- 
meditate the sheerest bombast ! But even with regard to 
these Letters of Burns, it is but fair to state that he had 
two excuses. The fi rst was his comparative - deficienay^Jjir, 
lang uage. Burns, though for most part he writes with 

10 singular force and even gracefulness, is not master of Kng- 
lish prose as he is of Scottish verse ; not master of it, we 
mean, in proportion to the depth and vehejnence of his mat- 
ter. These Letters strike us as the effort of a man to express 
something which he has no organ fit for expressing. ^^utJfc- 

15 second and weightier excu.s^e is to be_f.Oimd in the pe culiarit y 

'^f Bui-ns's socia l j'iink. . His correspondents are often men 

whosp ri'latidii to him he has never accurately ascertained; 

Avhom therefore he is either forearming himself against, or 

else unconsciously flattering, by adopting the style he thinks 

20 will please them. At all events, we should remember that 
these faults, even in his Letters, are not the rule, but the 
exception. Whenever he writes, as one would ever wish to 
do, to trusted friends and on real interests, his style becomes 
simple, vigorous, expressive, sometimes even beautiful.- His 

25 letters to Mrs. Dunlop * are uniformly excellent. 
/-y!6ut we return to his Poetry. In addition to its Sincerity, 
It has another peculiar merit, which indeed is but a mode, 
or perhaps a means, of the foregoing: this displays itself 
"^S*- in his choice of subjects ; or I'ather in his indifference as to 
t.^yj9^>9aibjects, and the power he has of making all subjects inter- 
esting.'' The ordinary poet, like the ordinary man, is for- 
ever seeking in external circumstances the help which can 
be found only in himself. In what is familiar and near at 
hand, he discerns no form or comeliness : home is not poet- 

35 ical but prosaic; it is in some past, distant, conventional, 



ii'j ON BURNS. 53 

lieroic woild that poetry resides ; were he there and not 
here, were he thus and not so, it Avoiikl be Avell with him. 
Henee our innumerable host of rose-colored Novels and iron- 
maih."' Rpics,^ with their locality not on the Earth, but ^- 
Moir^-'Vv i:ore nearer to the Moon.^ Hence our .Virgins of the 5 
:■ UB, and our Knights of the Cross, malicious Saracens in 
ttirba^' , and copper-colored Chiefs in wampum, and so many 
other truculent^ figures from the heroic times or the heroic 
Lumates, who on all hands swarm in our poetry. Peace be 
with tliem ! But yet, as a great moralist * proposed preach- lo 
ing to the men of this century, so would we fain preach to 
the poets " a ser mon on the duty of _sta ying at home.'' Let 
them be sure that heroic ages and heroic climates can do 
little for them. That form of life has-attraction for us, less 
because it is better or nobler than our own than simply be- 15 
cause it is different; and even this attraction must be of 
the most transient sort. For will not our own age one day 
be an ancient one, and have as quaint a costume as the 
rest; not contrasted with the rest, therefore, but ranked 
along with them, in respect of quaintness ? Does Homer ^ 20 
interest us now because he wrote of what passed beyond 
his native Greece, and two centuries before ^ he was born ; 
or because he wrote of what passed in God's world and in the 
heart of man, which is the same after thirty centuries ? 
Let our poets look to this: is their feeling really finer, 25 
truer, and their vision deeper than that of other men, — 
they have nothing to fear, even from the humblest subject: 
is it not so, — they have nothing to hope, but an ephemeral" 
favor, even from the highest. ^w^'t fc^x-tXX.^^ 
/j. The poet, we imagine, can never have far to seek for a 30 
subject : the elements of his art are in him, and around him^Xv*" 
on every hand ; for him the Ideal world is not remote from ,.V 
the Actual, but \uider it and within it : nay, he is a poet — 

precisely because he can discern it there. Wherever there 
is a sky above him, and a world around him, the poet is 35 



54 carlyle's essay [m. 

in his place; for here too is man's existence, witi^ its infi- 
nite longings and small acquirings ; its ever-thwartGd, ever- 
renewed endeavors; its unspeakable aspirations, iljs fears 
and hopes that wander through Eternity; and all tlijj'mys- 

5 tery of brightness and of gloom that it was ever maJo of, 
in any age or climate, since man first began to live. Js 
there not the fifth act of a Tragedy in every deathbed, 
though it Avere a peasant's and a bed of heath ? And are 
wooings and weddings obsolete, that there can be Comedy 

10 no longer ? Or are men suddenly grown wise, that Laugh- 
ter^ must no longer shake his sides, but be cheated of his 
Farce? Man's life and nature is as it was, and as it will 
ever be. But the poet must have an eye to read these 
things, and a heart to understand them ; or they come and 

15 pass away before him in vain. He is a oates,^ a seer ; a gift 

of vision has been given him. Has life no meanings for 

him, which another cannot equally decipher? then he is no 

poet, and Delphi^ itself will not make him one. 

/(f, In this respect, Burns, though not perhaps absolutely a 

20 great poet, better manifests his capability, better proves the 
truth of his genius, than if he had by his own strength kept 
the whole Minerva Press' going, to the end of his literary 
course. He showfi jiin^sejif^at least a^ poet.af .^Njjiiitela-aiiLU- 
making ; a nd Natur e^ after aiTpTs still the grand agent in 

25 mak ing poet s. We often hear of this and the other external 
condition being requisite for the existence of a poet. Some- 
times it is a certain sort of training; he must have studied 
certain things, studied for instance "the elder dramatists," 
and so learned a poetic language ; as if poetry lay in the 

30 tongue, not in the heart." At other times we are told he 
must be bred in a certain rank, and must be on a confi- 
dential footing with the higher classes ; because, above all 
things, he must see the world. As to seeing the world, we 

* apprehend this will cause him little difficulty, if he have 

35 but eyesight to see it with. A\'ithout eyesight, indeed, the 



III.] ON BURNS. 55 

task might be hard. The blind or the purblind man "travels 
from Dan to Beersheba^ and finds it all barren." But hap- 
pily every poet is born in the world; and sees it, with or 
against his Avill, every day and every hour he lives. The 
mysterious workmanship of man's heart, the true light and 5 
the inscrutable darkness of man's destiny, reveal themselves 
not only in capital cities and crowded saloons, but in every 
hut and hamlet where men have their abode. Nay, do not 
the elements of all human virtues and all human vices, the 
passions at once of a Borgia^ and of a Luther,^ lie written, 10 
in stronger or fainter lines, in the consciousness of every 
individual bosom that has practiced honest self-examina- 
tion ? Truly, this same world may be seen in Mossgiel * 
and Tarbolton,^ if we look well, as clearly as it ever came 
to light in Crockford's,'' or the Tuileries ^ itself. 15 

/ But sometimes still harder requisitions are laid on the 
poor aspirant to poetry; for it is hinted that he should 
have beeiL-i^orn two centuries ago ; inasmuch as poetry, about — 
that date, vanished- from the rarth, and became no longer 
attainable by men ! Such cobweb speculations " have, now 20 
and then, overhung the field of literature ; but they obstruct 
not the growth of any plant there : the Shakespeare or 
the Burns, unconsciously and merely as he walks onward, 
silently brushes them away. Is not every genius an impos- 
sibility ^° till he appear ? Why do we call him new and 25 
original, if ive saw where his marble was lying, and what 
fabric he could rear from it? It is not the material but 
the workman that is wanting. It is not the dark p?ac<? that 
hinders, but the dim eye}^ _A Scottisli_peasant's life was the 
meanest and rudest of all lives, jtill Burns became a poet in so 
it and a poet of it ; found it a man\s life, and therefore sig- 

-nificant to men. A thousand battle fields re^nain unsung; 
but the WouinXed Hare ^^ has not perished without its memo- 
rial ; a balm of mercy yet breathes on us from itgi^dumb 
agonies, because a poet was there. Our Halloween ^^**Tfkd 35 




56 carlyle's essay [m. 

passed and repassed, in rude awe and laughter, since tlie 
era of the Druids; ' but'no Theocritus, till Burns, discerned 
in it the materials of a Scottish Idyl: "' neither was the Hohj 
Fair^ any Council of Trent ■* or Roman JxihUec;' but neverthe- 

5 less, /Suj^eistitioji and Hypocrisy and Fan having been propi- 
tious to him, in this man's hand it became a poem, instinct 
with satire and genuine comic life. Let but tli ft^trn^ pnp.h 
be gi ven us — Ave repeat it — place him where and,.JiQiL-^ou 
will, and true poetry will not be wantuAg. 
VJOy '"independently of the essential gift of poetic feeling, as 
iVwe have now attempted to describe it, a certain rugged 
sterling worth" pervades whatever Burns has written; a 
virtue, as of green fields and mountain breezes, dwells in 
his poetry ; it is redolent of natural life and hardy natural 

15 men. There is a decisive strength in him, and yet a sweet 
native gracefulness : he is tender, he is vehement, yet with- 
out constraint or too visible effort ; he melts the heart, or 
inflames it, with a power which seems habitual and familiar 
to him. We see that in this man there was the gentleness, 

20 the trembling pity of a woman, with the deep earnestness, the 
force and passionate ardor of a hero. Tears lie in him, and 
consuming fire : as lightning lurks in the drops of the sum- 
mer cloud. He has a resonance in his bosom for every note 
of human feeling: the high and the low, the sad, the ludi- 

25 crous, the joyful, are welcome in their turns to his ''lightly- 
moved and all-conceiving spirit." And observe with what 
a fierce, prompt force he grasps his subject, be it what it 
may!) How he fixes, as it were, the full image of the mat- 
ter in his eye ; full and clear in every lineament ; and 

30 catches the real type and essence of it amid a thousand 
accidents and superficial circumstances, no one of which 
misleads him! Is it of reason — some truth to be dis- 
covered? No sophistry, no vain surface-logic detains liim ; 
quick, resolute, unerring, he pierces through into the mar- 

35 row of the (^uestipn, and speaks his verdict with an empha- 



/ 



III.] ON BUKNS. 57 

sis that cannot be forgotten. Is it of description — some 
visnal object to be represented ? No poet of any age or 
nation is more graphic than Burns : the characteristic 
features disclose themselves to him at a glance ; three lines 
from his hand, and we have a likeness. And, in that rough 5 
dialect, in that rude, often awkward meter, so clear and 
definite a likeness ! It seems a draughtsman working with 
a burnt stiftk ; and yet the burin ^ of a Retzsch- is not more 
expressive or exact, 
/y^ Of this last excellence"' — the plainest and most comprehen- 10 
sive of all, being indeed the root and foundation of every 
sort of talent, poetical or intellectual — we could produce 
innumerable instances from the writings of Burns. Take 
these glimpses of a snowstorm from his Winter Night (the 
italics are ours) : 15 

When biting Boreas,'* fell and doure,'^ 
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r, 
And Phoebus gies'' a short-livW cjloior 

Far south the lift,'' 
Dim dark'ning thro'' the flaky shoiv'r 20 

Or lohirling drift : 

'Ae8 night the storm the steeples rock'd, 
Poor labor sweet in sleep was lock'd, 
While burns,9 toV snawy loreeths^'^ upchoWd, 

Wild-eddying swirl, 25 

Or thro' the mining outlet bock'd," 

Down headlong hurl. 



'o 



Are there not "descriptive touches" here? The describer 
saw this thing; the essential feature and true likeness of 
every circumstance in it ; saw, and not with the eye only. 
"Poor labor locked in sweet sleep;" the dead stillness of 
man, unconscious, vanquished, yet not unprotected, while 
such strife of the *material elements rages, and seems to 
reign supreme in loneliness, — this is of the heart as well as 



30 



/ 



58 carlyle's essay [m. 

of the eye ! — Look also at his image of a thaw, and prophe- 
sied fall of the Auld Brig : ^ 

When heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains 
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains ; 
5 When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil, 

Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil, 
Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course, 
Or haunted Garpal - draws his feeble source, 
Arous'd by blust'ring winds and spotting tliowes,-^ 

10 In momj a torrent down his snaw-broo'^ roioes;^ 

While crashing ice, borne on the roaring spate,^ 
Sweeps dams and mills and brigs rt' to the gate; 
And from Glenbuck'' down to the Rattonkey,^ 
Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd tumbling sea ; 

15 Then down ye'll hurl, Deil nor ye never rise ! 

And dash the gnmlie'^ jaups'^° up to the pouring skies. 

The last line is in itself a Poussin-picture ^^ of that Deluge ! 
The welkin has, as it were, bent down with its weight ; the 
"gumlie jaups " and the "pouring skies" are mingled to- 

20 gether ; it is a world of rain and ruin. — In respect of mere 
clearness and minute fidelity, the Farmer's ^- commendation 
of his Avid Mare, in plow or in cart, may vie with Homer's 
Smithy '^ of the Cyclops," or yoking of Priam's Chariot.'-' 
Nor have we forgotten stout Burn-tlie-ioind^*^ and his brawny 

2-) customers inspired by Scotch Drink : ^'' but it is needless to 
multiply examples. One other trait of a much finer sort 
we select from multitudes of such among his Songs. It 
gives, in a single line, to the saddest feeling the saddest 
environment and local habitation: 

30 The pale Moon is setting beyond the white vmve, 

And Time is setting wT me, ; 
Farewell, false friends ! false lover, farewell ! 
I'll nae mair trouble them nor thee, 0. 

WtThis clearness of sight we have calletl the foundation of 
35 all talent ; for in fact, unless we see our object, how shall 



III.] ON BURNS. Y ' 59 

we know how to place or prize it in our understanding, our 
imagination, our affections ? Yet it is not in itself, per- 
haps, a very high excellence ; but capable of being united 
indifferently with the strongest, or with ordinary power. 
Homer surpasses all men in this quality : ' but, strangely 5 
enough, at no great distance below him are Richardson^ and 
Defoe. '^ It belongs, in truth, to what is called a lively 
mind; and gives no sure indication of the higher endoAV- 
ments that may exist along with it. In all the three cases 
we have mentioned, it is combined with great garrulity ; lo 
their descriptions are detailed, ample and lovingly exact : 
Homer's fire bursts through, from time to time, as if by 
accident ; but Defoe and Richardson have no fire. Burns, 
again, is not more distinguished by the clearness than by 
the impetuous force of his conceptions. Of the strength, 15 
the piercing emphasis with which he thought, his emphasis 
of expression may give a humble but the readiest proof. 
Who ever uttered sharper sayings than his ; words more 
memorable, now by their burning vehemence, now by their 
cool vigor and laconic pith ? A single phrase depicts a 20 
whole subject, a whole scene. We hear of " a gentleman 
that derived his patent of nobility direct from Almighty 
God." Our Scottish forefathers in the battle field struggled 
forward " red-icat-sJiod : '' * in this one word, a full vision of 
horror and carnage, perhaps too frightfully accurate' for 2. 
Art ! 
.^i/ In fact, one of the Jeading features in the mind of Burns 
,.-46 this vigor of his strictly intellectual perceptions.'' A 
resolute force is ever visible in his judgments, and in his 
feelings aiid volitions. Professor Stewart '' says of him, 30 
with some surprise: "All the faculties of Burns's mind 
were, as far as I could judge, equally vigorous; and his 
'■"" predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own 
enthusiastic and impassioned temper than of a genius ex- 
clusively adapted to that species of composition. From his 35 




60 carlyle's essay [m. 

conversation I should have pronounced him to be fitted to 
excel in whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert 
his abilities." But this, if we mistake not, is at all times 
the very essence of a truly poetical endowment. Poetry, 
5 except in such cases as that of Keats, ^ where the whole con- 
sists in a weak-eyed maudlin sensibility, and a certain 
vague random tunefulness of nature, is no separate faculty, 
no organ Avhich can be superadded to the rest, or disjoined 
from them ; but rather the result of their general harmony 

10 and completion. The feelings, the gifts that exist in the 
Poet, are those that exist, with more or less development, in 
every human soul : the imagination, which shudders at the 
Hell of Dante,^ is the same faculty, weaker in degree, which 
called that picture into being. How does the Poet speak 

15 to men with power but by being still more a man than 
they ? Shakespeare,"'^ it has been well observed, in the plan- 
ning and completing of his tragedies, has shown an Under- 
standing, were it nothing more, which might have governed 
states, or indited a Xovum Organum} AYhat Burns's force 

20 of understanding may have been, we have less means of 
judging: it had to dwell among the humblest objects; 
never saw Philosophy ; never rose, except by natural effort 
and for short intervals, into the region of great ideas. 
Nevertheless, sufficient indication, if no proof sufficient, 

25 remains for us in his works : we discern the brawny move- 
ments of a gigantic though untutorecTstrength ; and can 
understand how, in conversation, his qiiick sure insight 
into men and things may, as much as aught else about him, 
have amazed the best thinkers of his time and country. 

3G^2/But, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift of Burns is 

"■"fine as well as strong.^ The more delicate relations of 

things could not well have escaped his eye, for they were 

intimately present to Jiis heart. The logic of the senate and 

the forum is indispensable, but not all-s\ifficient ; nay, per- 

35 haps the highest Truth is that which will the most certainly 



III.] ON BURNS. Gl 

elude it. For this logic works by words, and " the highest," 
it has been said, " cannot be expressed in words." We are 
not without tokens of an openness for this higher truth also, 
of a keen though uncultivated sense for it, having existed in 
Burns. Mr. Stewart, it will be remembered, " wonders," ' in 5 
the passage above quoted, that Burns had formed some dis- 
tinct conception of the "doctrine of association." We rather 
think that far subtler things than the doctrine of associa- 
tion- had from of old been familiar to him. Here for 
instance : — 10 

^^' We know nothing,"^ thus Avrites he, "or next to noth- 
ing, of the structure of our souls; so we cannot account for 
those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particu- 
larly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on 
minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impres- 15 
sion. I have some favorite flowers in spring, among which 
are the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild- 
brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that 
I view and hang over with particular delight. I never hear 
the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or 20 
the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover in an 
autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like 
the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear 
friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of ma- 
chinery, which, like the ^olian harp, passive, takes the 25 
impression of the passing accident; or do these workings 
argue something within us above the trodden clod ? I own 
myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important 
realities : a God that made all things, man's immaterial and 
immortal nature, and a world of weal or woe beyond death 30 
and the grave." 
<V Force and fineness of understanding are often spoken of 
as something different from general force and fineness of 
nature, as something partly independent of them. The 
necessities of language so require it ; but in truth these 35 



i 



N*^ 



r 



62 carlyle's essay [m. 

qualities are not distinct and independent : except in special 
cases, and from special causes, tliey ever go together. A 
man of strong understanding is generally a man of strong 
character ; neither is delicacy in the one kind often divided 

i from delicacy in the other. No one, at all events, is igno- 

r rant that in the Poetry of Burns keenness of insight keeps 
^V- >0 pace with keenness of feeling ; ^ that his light is not more 
*A \ pervading than his ivarmth. He is a man of the most im- 
^ passioned temper ; with passions not strong only, but noble, 

10 and of the sort in which great virtues and great poems take 
their rise. It is reverence, it is love towards all Nature 
that inspires him, that opens his eyes to its beauty, and 
makes heart and voice eloquent in its praise. There is a 
true old saying, that "Love furthers knowledge:" but, above 

15 all, it is the living essence of that knowk'dge whic h make s 
ppt'ts ; the first principle of its existence, increase, activity. 
Of Burns's fervid affection, his generous all-embracing Love, 
\ve have spoken already, as of the grand distinction of his 
nature, seen equally in word and deed, in his Life and in 
Lis Writings. 

It were easy to multiply examples. Not man only, 
but all that environs man in the material and moral 
universe, is lovely in his sight : " the hoary hawthorn 
the "troop of gray plover," the "solitary curlew," 

25 are dear to him; all live in this Earth along with him, 
and to all he is knit as in mysterious brotherhood. How 
touching is it, for instance, that, amidst the gloom of per- 
sonal misery, brooding over the wintry desolation without 
him and within him, he thinks of the "ourie cattle" and 

30 " silly sheep," and their sufferings in the pitiless storm ! 

I thought me on the ourie cattle,^ 

Or silly sheep, wha bide ^ this brattle * 

()' wintry war, 
Or thro' the drift, deep-lairing.^^ sprattle,^ 
35 Beneath a scar.'' 




% 




III.] ON BURNS. 63 

Ilk 1 happing - bird, wee helpless thing, 
That in the merry months o' spring 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

What comes o' thee ? 
Whei-e wilt thou cow'r thy chittering ^ wing, 5 

And close thy e'e ? 

The tenant of the mean hut, with its "ragged roof and 
chinky wall," has a heart to pity even these ! This is worth 
several homilies on Mercy ; for it is the voice of Mercy her- 
self. Burns, indeed, lives in sympathy ; his soul rushes 10 
forth into all realms of being ; nothing that has existence 
can be indifferent* to him. The very DeviP he cannot 
hate with right orthodoxy: 

But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben ; ^ 

O, wad'^ ye tak a thought and men' ! ^ 15 

Ye aiblins ^ might, — I dinna '^^ ken, " — 

Still hae a stake ; i^ 
I'm wae i^ to think upo' yon den. 

Even for your sake ! 

" He is the father of curses and lies," said Dr. Slop ; ^* "and 20 
is cursed and damned already." — "I am sorry for it," quoth 
my uncle Toby ! ^^ — A Poet without Love were a physical 
ajid metaphysical impossibility. 
^/ But has it not been said, in contradiction to this principle, 
/that " Indignation makes verses " ? ^^ It has been so said, 25 
and is true enough : but the contradiction is apparent, not 
real. The Indignation which makes verses is, properly 
speaking, an inverted Love ; ^' the love of some right, some 
worth, some goodness, belonging to ourselves or others, 
which has been injured, and which this tempestuous feeling 30 
issues forth to defend and avenge. Xo selfish fury of heart, 
existing there as a primary feeling and without its opposite, 
ever produced much Poetry : otherwise, we suppose, the 
Tiger were the most musical of all our choristers. John- 
son ^^ said, he loved a good hater ; by which he must have 35 



64 carlyle's essay [m. 

meant, not so much one that hated violently, as one that 
hated wisely ; hated baseness from love of nobleness. How- 
ever, in spite of Johnson's paradox, tolerable enough for 
once in speech, but which need not have been so often 
5 adopted in print since then, we rather believe that good 
men deal sparingly in hatred, either wise or unwise : nay 
that a " good " hater is still a desideratum ^ in this world. 
The Devil, at least, who passes for the chief and best of 
th^ class, is said to be nowise an amiable character. 
j\ l?v^alL)f the verses which Indignation makes, Burns has also 
^U*\ given us specimens, andamong the best that wer e ever 
V^ given. \\ ho will torget his Dweller in yon Dungeon dark ; ^ 
a piece that might have been chanted by the Furies'* of 
^schylus?* The secrets of the infernal Pit^ are laid 
15 bare ; a boundless baleful " darkness visible ; " •* and streaks 
of hell-fire quivering madly in its black haggard bosom ! 

Dweller in yon Dungeon dark, 
Hangman of Creation, mark" 
2Q Who in widow's weeds appears, 

Laden with unhonored years, 
Noosing*^ with care a bursting purse, 
Baited ^ with many a deadly curse ! i" 

< © Why should Ave speak of Scots wha hae ivi' Wallace bled ; " 
since all know of it, from the king to the meanest of his 

25 subjects ? This dithyrambic '- was composed on horse- 
back ; ^^ in riding in the middle of tempests over the wildest 
Galloway moor, in company Avith a Mr. Syme, Avho, observing 
the poet's looks, forbore to speak, — judiciously enough, for 
a man composing Bnice's Address might be unsafe to trifle 

30 with ! Doubtless this stern hymn was singing itself, as he 
formed it, through the soul of Burns : but to the external 
ear it should be sung with the throat of the Avhirlwind. So 
long as there is warm blood in the heart of Scotchman or 
man, it will move in fierce thrills under this war-ode; the 

35 best," we believe, that was ever written by any pen. 



III.] ON BURNS. 65 

'^V Anotlier wild stormful Song, that dwells in our ear and 
mind with a strange tenacity, is Macpherson'' s Farewell} 
Perhaps there is something in the tradition itself "tliat co- 
operates. For was not this grim Celt,- this shaggy North- 
land Cacus,^ that '• lived a life of sturt^ and strife, and died 5 
by treacherie," — was not he too one of the Nimrods^ and 
Napoleons" of the earth in the arena of his owu^ remote 
misty glens, for want of a clearer and wider one ? Nay, 
was there not a touch of grace given him ? A fiber of love 
and softness, of poetry itself,'' must have lived in his savage lo 
heart : for he composed that air the night before his execu- 
tion; on the wings of that poor melody his better soul 
would soar away above oblivion, pain, and all the ignominy 
and despair, which, like an avalanche, was hurling him to 
the abyss ! Here, also, as at Thebes,'^ and in Pelops's ^ 15 
line, was material Fate '" matched against man's Free-will ; 
matched in bitterest though obscure duel ; and the ethereal 
soul sank not, even in its blindness, without a cry which 
has survived it. But who, except Burns, could have given 
words to such a soul ; words that we never listen to without 20 
a strange half-barbarous, half-poetic fellow-feeling ? 

Sue rantingly, sae wantonhj, 

Sue dauntingltj yaed he ; 
He plaifd a spring, and danced it round, 

Below the ( fallows tree. ' /"T^/LA^ />5 

M^y I f (^ 

^v Under a lighter disguise, the same principle of Love, C/ 
which we have recognized as the great characteristic of 
Burns, and of all true poets, occasionally manifests itself 
in the shape of Humor. Everywhere, indeed, in his sunny 
moods, a full buoyant flood of mirth rolls through the mind 30 
of Burns ; he rises to the high, and stoops to the Ioav, and 
is brother and playmate to all Nature. We speak not of 
his bold and often irresistible faculty of caricature ; for 
this is Drollery rather than Humor : '^ but a much tenderer 




66 carlyle's essay [iv. 

sportfulness dwells in him ; and comes forth here and 
there in evanescent and beautiful touches ; as in his Ad- 
dress to the Mouse,^ or the Farmer's Mare,- or in his 
Elegy on poor Mailie,^ which last may be reckoned his hap- 
5 piest effort of this kind. In these pieces there are traits of 
a Humor as fine as that of Sterne ; ■* yet altogether dilfer- 
ent, original, peculiar, — the Humor of Burns. 



IV. 



5Wc 



Of the tenderness, the playful pathos, and many other 
" Kindred qualities of Burns's Poetry, much more might be 

10 said; but now, with these poor outlines of a sketch, we 
must prepare to quit this part of our subject. To speak of 
his individual Writings adequately and with any detail 
would lead us far beyond our limits. As already hinted, 
we can look on but few of these pieces as, in strict critical 

15 language, deserving the name of Poems : they are rhymed 
eloquence, rhymed pathos, rhymed sense ; yet seldom essen- 
tially melodious, aerial, poetical. Tarn o' Shanter^ itself, 
which enjoys so high a favor, doeapnpt ai:yDear to A^s at all 
decisively to come under this la^^'^M^opy. "Tt"is not so 

20 much a poem, as a piece of sparkling rhetoric : the heart and 
body of the story still lies hard and dead. He has not gone 
back, much less carried us back, into that dark, earnest, 
wondering age when the tradition was believed, and when 
it took its rise ; he does not attempt, by any new modeling 

25 of his supernatural ware, to strike anew that deep myste- 
rious chord of human nature, which once responded to such 
things, and which lives in us too, and will forever live, 
though silent now, or vibrating with far other notes and to 
far different issues. Our German readers will understand 

30 us when we say that he is not the Tieck " but the Musaus,^ 
of this tale. Externally it is all green and living; yet look 
closer, it is no firm growth, but only ivy on a rock. The 




IV.] ON BURN^. l/y 67 

piece does not properly cohere : the strange chasm which 
yawns in our incredulous imaginations between the Ayr 
public house and the gate of Tophet,' is nowhere bridged 
over; nay, the idea of such a bridge is laughed at; and thus 
the Tragedy of the adventure becomes a mere drunken 5 
phantasmagoria, or many-colored spectrum painted on ale- 
vapors, and the Farce alone has any reality. We do not 
say that Burns should have made much more of this tradi- 
tion; Ave rather think that, for strictly poetical purposes, 
not much ivas to be made of it. Neither are we blind to 10 
the deep, varied, genial power displayed in what he has 
actually accomplished ; but we find far more " Shake- 
spearean " qualities, as these of Turn o' Shanter have 
been fondly named, in many of his other pieces ; nay, we 
incline to believe that this latter may have been written, all 15 
but quite as well, by a man who, in place of genius, had 
only possessed talent. ^'•-■ -- 

'^"'C' Perhaps we may venture to say, tnat the most strictly 
""pCefical of all his " poems " is one which does not appear in 
Currie's Edition, but has been often printed before and 20 
since under the humble title of The Jolbj Beggarsr' The 
subject truly is among the loAvest in Nature; but it only 
the more shows our Poet's gift in raising it into the 
domain of Art. To our minds, this piece seems thoroughly 
compacted ; melted together, refined ; and poured forth in 25 
one flood of true liquid harmony. It is light, airy, soft of 
movement; yet sharp and precise in its details; every face 
is a portrait: that raude^ carlin* that 7vee Apollo,^ that Son 
of Mars,^ are Scottish, yet ideal; the scene is at once 
a dream, and the very Ragcastle of " Poosie '^-Nansie." 30 
Farther, it seems in a considerable degree complete, a real 
self-supporting Whole, which is the highest merit in a 
poem. The blanket of the Night is drawn asunder for a 
mo]iient; in full, ruddy, flaming light, these rough tatter- 
demalions are seen in their boisterous revel ; for the strong 35 



68 CARLYLE's essay [iv. 

pulse of Life vindicates its right to gladness even here ; 
and when the curtain closes, we prolong the action without 
effort ; the next day as the last, our Ckdrd ^ and our Ballad- 
monger are singing and soldiering ; their '• brats and callets " - 

5 are hawking, begging, cheating; and some other night, in 
new combinations, they will wring from Fate another hour 
of wassail ^ and good cheer. Apart from the universal sym- 
pathy with man which this again bespeaks in Burns, a 
genuine inspiration and no inconsiderable technical talent 

10 are manifested here. There is the fidelity, humor, warm 
life, and accurate painting and grouping of some Teniers,* 
for whom hostlers and carousing peasants are not without 
significance. It Avould be strange, doubtless, to call this 
the best of Burns's writings : we mean to say only, that it 

15 seems to us the most perfect of its kind, as a piece of 
poetical composition, strictly so called. In the Beggars' 
Opera,^ in the Beggars' Bush,''' as other critics have al- 
ready remarked, there is nothing which, in real poetic 
rigor, equals this Cantata;' nothing, as we think, which 
comes within many degrees of it. 

_«iflSaBut by far the most finished, complete, and truly inspired 
pieces of Burns are, without dispute, to be found among his 
■^ongs^ It is here that, although through a small aperture, 
his light shines with least obstruction, in its highest beauty 

25 and pure sunny clearness. The reason may be, that Son g 
is a brief simple species of composition ; and requires noth- 
ing so much for its perfection as genuine poetic feeling, 
genuine music of the heart.* Yet the Song has its rules 
equally with the Tragedy; rules which in most cases are 

30 poorly fulfilled, in many cases are not so much as felt. We 
might write a long essay on the Songs of Burns ; which we 
reckon by far the best that Britain has yet produced : •' for 
indeed, since the era of Queen Elizabeth, we know not that, 
by any other hand, aught truly worth attention has bern 



IV.] ON BURNS. 69 

accomplished in this department. True, we have songs 
enough "hy persons of quality ; " ^ we have tawdry, hollow, 
wine-bred madrigals ; ^ many a rhymed speech " in the flow- 
ing and watery vein of Ossorius ^ the Portugal Bishop," rich 
in sonorous words, and, for moral, dashed perhaps with 5 
some tint of a sentimental sensuality ; all which many per- 
sons cease not from endeavoring to sing ; though for most 
part, we fear, the music is but from the throat outwards, or 
at best from some region far enough short of the iSoul; not 
in which, but in a certain inane Limbo* of the Fancy, or 10 
even in some vaporous debatable-land on the outskirts of 
the Nervous System, most of such madrigals and rhymed 
speeches seem to have originated. 
S^ With the Songs of Burns we must not name these things. 
Independently of the clear, manly, heartfelt sentiment that 15 
ever pervades his poetry, his Songs are honest in another 
point of view: in form, as well as in spirit. They do not 
affect to be set to music, but they actually and in themselves 
are music;' they have received their life, and fashioned 
themselves together, in the medium of Harmony,'^ as Venus 20 
rose '' from the bosom of the sea. The story, the feeling; is 
not detailed, but suggested ; not said, or spouted, in rhetori- 
cal completeness and coherence ; but simg, in fitful gushes, 
in glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in toarhUngs not of the 
voice only, but of the whole mind. We consider this to be 25 
the essence of a song ; and that no songs since the little 
careless catches, and as it were drops of song,^ which Shake- 
speare has here and there sprinkled over his Plays, fulfill 
this condition in nearly the same degree as most of Burns's 
do. Such grace and truth of exteinal movement, too, pre- 30 
supposes in general a corresponding force and truth of sen- 
timent and inward meaning. The Songs of Burns are not 
more perfect in the former quality than in the latter. With 
Avhat tenderness he sings, yet with what vehemence and 
entireness ! There is a piercing wail in his sorrow, the 35 



70 carlyle's essay [iv. 

purest rapture in his joy ; he burns with the sternest ire, 
or laughs with the loudest or slyest mirth ; and yet he is 
sweet and soft, " sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, 
and soft as their parting tear." (if we far ther take i nto 
5 account the immense variety of his subjects ; how, from the 
loud, flowing revel in Wi llie brew\l a Peck o' Maut } to the 
still, rapt enthusiasm of sadness for ^^ar1 l ' ' i ^J ^^^i >'''>' - ' from 
the glad, kind greeting of Auld Lang Sme,^ or the comic 
archness of Dan can Gray * to tlie tire-eyed fury of Sc ots zvhcL 

10 hae icV Wallgse hlpf{^ jip linv^ ^oniKl n, tone and \y 9vds fun 
^very mood ^ of man's heart, — Jftt will seem a small praise if 
we rank him as the first of /ill our Song-writers; for we 
know not where to find one worthy of being second to him. 

•^^It is on his Songs, as we believe, that Kurns's chief influ- 

15 ence as an author will ultimately be found to depend : nor, 
if our Fletcher's' aphorism^ is true, shall we account this 
a small influence. '' Let me make the songs of a people," 
said he, " and you shall make its laws." " Surely, if ever 
any Poet might have equaled himself with Legislators on 

20 this ground, it was Burns. His Songs are already part of 
the mother tongue, not of Scotland only but of Britain, and 
of the millions that in all ends of the earth speak a British 
language. In hut and hall, as the heart unfolds itself in 
many-colored joy and woe of existence, the name, the voice, 

25 of that joy and that woe is the name and voice '" which 
Burns has given them. Strictly speaking, perhaps no Brit- 
ish man has so deeply affected the thou;j:hts and feelings of 
so many men as this solitary and altogether private individ- 
ual, with means apparently the humblest. 

SO '^Jn another point of view, moreover, we incline to think 
that Burns's influence may have been considerable : we 
mean, as exerted specially on the Literature of his coimtry, 
at least on the Literature of Scotland. A mong the ffl,'eat_ 
changes wJ iich British, particularly Snn| j| ,jsh. 1i|,pra.tnTP. li.i s 

35 undergone since that period, one of the s[reat^fiti '^^^'^J be 



lY.] ON BURNS. 71 

fmnifl \(^ pr.ngigf_ ia it.> n'iiiaikahlc iiinca.^r m nationality. 
Even the English writers, most popular in Burns's time, 
Avere little distinguished for their literary patriotism, in its 
best sense. A certain attenuated cosmopolitanism had, in 
good measure, taken place of the old insular home-feeling ; 5 
literature Avas, as it were, without any local environment ; 
was not nourished by the affections which spring from a 
native soil. Our Grays ^ ami Glovers ' seemed to Avrite 
almost as if in vacuo ;^ the thing Avritten bears no mark of 
place; it is not written so much for Englishmen, as for 10 
men; or rather, which is the inevitable result of this, 
for certain Generalizations which philosophy termed men. 
Goldsmith'' is an exception: not so Johnson;'' the scene of 
\\\^ianihJer^ is little more English than that of his RasselasJ 
t3 I^i^it if such was, in some degree, the case Avith England, 15 
it Avas in the highest degree the case Avith Scotland. In 
fact, our Scottish literature had, at that period, a very sin- 
gular aspect ; unexampled, so far as we knoAv, except perhaps 
at Geneva,* where the same state of matters appears still to 
continue. For a long period after Scotland became British,'*" 20 
Ave had no literature : at the date Avhen Addison and Steele'" 
Avere writing their Spectators,'^^ our good John Boston '- was 
Avriting, Avith the noblest intent, but alike in defiance of 
grammar and philosophy, his Fourfold State of Man. 
Then came the schisms in our national Church,'^ and the 25 
fiercer schisms in our Body Politic : " Theologic ink, and 
Jacobite '•' blood, Avith gall enough in both cases, seemed to 
have blotted out the intellect of the country : however, it 
was only obscured, not obliterated. Lord Kames^'^ made 
nearly the first attempt at Avriting English ; and, ere long, 30 
Hume,'^ Eobertson,'* Smith,''' and a Avhole host of folloAvers 
attracted hither the eyes of all Europe. And yet in this 
brilliant resuscitation of our "ferAdd genius," there A\^as 
nothing truh^ Scottish, nothing indigenous except, perhaps, 
the natural impetuosity of intellect, Avhich we sometimes 35 



72 CAKLYLE's essay [iv. 

claim, and are sometimes upbraided with, as a characteristic 
of our nation. It is curious to remark that Scotland, so full 
of writers, had no Scottish culture, nor indeed any English ; 
our culture was almost exclusively French. It was by 

5 studying Racine ' and Voltaire,- Batteux ^ and Hoileau,* that 
Karnes had trained himself to be a critic and philosopher ; 
it was the light of Montesquieu^ and Mably '' that guided 
Robertson in liis political speculations; Quesnay's' lamp 
that kindled the lamp of Adam Smith. Hume was too rich 

10 a man to borrow ; and perhaps he reacted on the French 
more than he was acted on by them : but neither had he 
aught to do with Scotland; Edin])urgh, equally with La 
Fleche,** was but the lodging and laboratory, in which he not 
so much morally lived, as metaphysically investigated. Never, 

15 perhaps, was there a class of writers so clear and Avell 
ordered, yet so totally destitute, to all appearance, of any 
patriotic affection, nay of any human affection whatever. 
The French wits of the period were as unpatriotic : but 
their general deficiency in moral principles, not to say their 

•JO avowed sensuality and unbelief in all virtue, strictly so 
called, render this accountable enough. We hope there is 
a patriotism founded on something better than prejudice;'-' 
that our country may be dear to us without injury to i)ur 
philosophy; that in loving and justly jjrizing all other 

L'5 lands, we may prize justly, and yet love before all others, 
our own stern Motherland, and the venerable Structure of 
social and moral Life which ]\rin(l has through long ages 
been building up for us there. Surely there is nourishment 
for the better part of man's heart in all this : surely the 

30 roots that have fixed themselves in the very core of man's 
being may be so cultivated as to grow up not into briers, 
but into roses, in the field of his life ! Our Scottish sages 
have no such propensities : the field of their life shows 
neither briers nor roses ; but only a flat, continuous thrash- 

35 ing floor for Logic, ^" whereon all (questions, from the "Doc- 



IV.] ON BURNS. 73 

trine of Rent" to the ''Natural History of Religion," are 
tlirashed and sifted with the same mechanical impartiality I 
?1 With Sir Walter Scott ^ at the head of our literature, it 
cannot be denied that much of this evil is past, or rapidly 
passing away : our chief literary men, whatever other faults 5 
they may have, no longer live among us like a French 
Colony, or some knot of Propaganda- Missionaries ; but like 
natural-born subjects of the soil, partaking and sympathiz- 
ing in all our attachments, humors, and habits. Our litera- 
ture no longer grows in water but in mold, and with the 10 
true racy virtues of the soil and climate. How much of 
this change may be due to Burns, or to any other individ- 
ual, it might be difficult to estimate. Direct literary imita- 
tion of Burns was not to be looked for. But his example, 
in the fearless adoption of domestic subjects, could not but 15 
operate from afar ; a nd certainly in no lienrt did f,1iP in^ro _ 
of country e ver burn ^viH, .^ -»v;^i.p-.Qy gi^-^y ^\^^^j^ ,„ ^]^^^ ^f 

KiTrns :_J ^ a tide of Sruttish ]uejudice,"3as he modestly calls 
this deep and generous feeling, "had been poured along his 
veins; and he felt that it would boil there till the flood- 20 
gates shut in eternal rest." It seemed to him, as if he could 
do so little for his country, and yet would so gladly have 
done all. One small province stood open for him, — that 
of Scottish Song ; and hoAv eagerly he entered on it, how 
devotedly he labored there ! In his toilsome journeyings, 2.1 
this object never quits him; it is the little happy-valley •• of 
his careworn heart. In the gloom of his own affliction, he 
eagerly searches after some lonely brother of the muse, and 
rejoices to snatch one other name from the oblivion that 
was covering it ! These were early feelings, and they abode 30 
with him to the end : — 

... A wish (I iiiiud its power), 

A wish, that to my latest hour 

Will strongly heave my breast, — 

That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake, 35 



carlyle's essay [v. 

Some useful plan or book could make, 
Or sing a sang at least. 

The rough bur Thistle ^ spreading wide 

Amang the bearded bear,'^ 
I turn'd my weeding-clips aside, 

And spared 3 the symbol dear. 



-<Sf 



o^ But to leave the mere literary character of Burns, which 
has already detained us too long. Far more interesting 
than any of his written works, as it appears to us, are his 

10 acted ones, the Life he willed and Avas fated to lead* among 
his fellow-men. These Poems are but like little rhymed 
fragments scattered here and there in the grand unrhymed 
Romance of his earthly existence ; and it is only when in- 
tercalated'' in this at their proper places, that they attain 

15 their full measure of significance. And this, too, alas, was 
but a fragment ! The plan of a mighty edifice had been 
sketched ; some coliimns, porticos, firm masses of building, 
stand completed ; the rest more or less clearly indicated ; 
with many a far-stretching tendency, which only studious 

20 and friendly eyes can noAv trace towards the purposed ter- 
mination. For the work is broken off in the middle, almost 
in the beginning, and rises among us, beautiful and sad, at 
once unfinished and a ruin ! If charitable judgment was 
necessary in estimating his Poems, and justice required 

25 that the aim and the manifest power to fulfill it must often 
be accepted for the fulfillment ; much more is this the case 
in regard to his Life, the sum and result of all his endeavors, 
where his difficulties came upon him not in detail only, but 
in mass ; and so much has been left unaccomplished, nay, 

30 was mistaken, and altogether marred. 

^g^£roperly speakiug,^ there is but one era in.- the Jife_of 
Burns," and that the earliest. We have not youth and man- 



v.] \ .^ ON BUli^S. 75 

hood, but only youth : for, to the end, we discern no decisive 
change in the complexion of his character; in his thirty- 
seventh year, he is still, as it were, in youth.' AYith all 
that resoluteness of judgment, that penetrating insight and 
singular maturity of intellectual power exhibited in his 5 
writings, he never attains to any clearness regarding him- 
self ; ^ to the last, he never ascertains his peculiar aim, even 
with such distinctness as is common among ordinary men ; 
and therefore never can pursue it with that singleness of 
will which insures success and some contentment to such lo 
men. To the last, he wavers between t wo pur]3osesl : 'g lory.- 
ing in his talent, like a true poet, he yet cannot conse"nt to 
makt' this his chief and sole glory, and to follow it as the 
out' thing needful, through poverty or riches, through good 
or evil report. Another far meaner ambition still clea\ cs 15 
to him ; he must dream and struggle about a certain '• Eock 
of Independence ; '^ which, natural and* even admirable as it 
might be, was still but a warring with the world, on the 
comparatively insignificant ground of his being more com- 
pletely or less completely supplied witl) money than others ; 20 
of his standing at a higher or at a lower altitude in general 
estimation than others. For the world still appears to him, 
as to the young, in borrowed colors : ''^ he expects from it 
what it cannot give to any man ; seeks for contentment, not 
within himself, in action and wise effort, but from without, 25 
in the kindness of circumstances, in love, friendship, honor, 
pecuniary ease. He would be happy, not actively and in 
himself, but passively and from some ideal cornucopia of 
Enjoyments, not earned by his own labor, but showered on 
liim by the beneficence of Destiny. Thus, like a young man, 30 
he can not gird himself upfor any worthy, well-calculated 
goaT7T>ut^werves to and fro, between passionate hope and 
r emor seful disappointment : rushing onwards with a deep 
tempestuous force, he surmounts or breaks asunder many a 
barrier ; travels, nay advances far, but advancing only under o5 



76 carlyle's essay [v. 

uncertain guidance, is ever and anon turned from his path ; 
and to the last cannot reach the only true happiness ^ of a man, 
that of clear decided Activity in the sphere for which, by 
nature and circumstances, he has been litted and appointed. 

^OWe do not say these things in dispraise of Burns ; nay, 
perhaps they but interest us the more in his favor. This 
blessing is not given soonest to the best; but rather, it is 
often the greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it ; for 
where most is to be developed, most time may be required 

10 to develop it. A complex condition had been assigned him 
from without; as complex a condition from within: no 
" preestablished harmony " existed between the clay soil of 
Mossgiel and the empyrean - soul of Robert Burns ; it was 
not wonderful that the adjustment between them should 

1.5 have been long postponed, and his arm long cumbered, and 
his sight confused, in so v'ast and discordant an economy 
as he had been appointed steward over. Byron was, at his 
death, but a year younger than Burns,, and through life, as 
it might have appeared, far more simply situated: yet in 

20 him too we can trace no such adjustment, no such moral 
manhood; but at best, and only a little before his end/'' the 
beginning of what seemed such. 

"^Q By much the most striking incident in Burns's Life is his 
.^journey^ jtg_ Edinburgh ; but perhaps a still more important 

25 one is his residence at Irvine, so early as in his twenty-tliird 
year. Hitherto his life had been poor and toil-worn ; but 
otherwise not ungenial, and, with all its distresses, by no 
means unhappy. In his parentage, deducting outward cir- 
cumstances, he had every reason to reckon himself fortunate. 

30 His father'* was a man of thoughtful, intense, earnest char- 
acter, as the best of our peasants are ; valuing knowledge, 
possessing some, and, what is far better and rarer, open- 
minded for more : a man with a keen insight and devout 
heart ; reverent towards God, friendly therefore at once, 

35 and fearless towards all that God has made; in one word, 



v.] ON BURNS. 77 

though but a hard-hantled peasant, a complete and fully 
\nifolded Ifan. Such a father is seldom found in any rank 
in society, and was worth descending far in society to seek. 
Unfortunately, he was very poor : had he been even a little 
richer, almost never so little, the Avhole might have issued 5 
far otherwise. Mighty events turn on a straw ; the crossing 
of a brook ^ decides the conquest of the world. Had this 
>Villiam Burns's small seven acres of nursery ground any- 
wise prospered, the boy Robert liad been sent to school ; 
had struggled forward, as so many weaker men do, to some lo 
university.; come forth not as a rustic wonder, but as a 
regular well-trained intellectual workman, and changed the 
whole course of British Literature,- — for it lay in him to 
have done this ! But the nursery did not prosper ; poverty 
sank his whole family below the help of even our cheap 15 
school system. Burns remained a hard- worked plowboy, and 
British literature took its own course. Nevertheless, even 
in this rugged scene there is much to nourish him. If 
lie drudges, it is with his brother, and for his father and 
rnother, whom he loves and Avould fain shield from want. 20 
Wisdom is not banished from their poor hearth, nor the 
balm of natural feeling. The solemn words. Let us ivorsldp 
God,^ are heard there from a " priest-like father : " ^ if tlireat- 
enings of unjust men throw mother and children into tears, 
these are tears not of grief only, but of holiest affection ; 25 
every heart in that Immble group feels itself the closer knit 
to every other ; in their hard warfare they are there to- 
gether, a " little band of brethren." iSTeither are such tears, 
and the deep beauty that dwells in them, their only portion. 
Light visits the hearts as it does the eyes of all living : 30 
there is a force, too, in this youth, that enables him to 
trample on misfortune ; nay, to bind it under his feet to 
make him sport. For a bold, warm, buoyant humor of 
character has been given him ; and so the thick-coming 
shapes of evil are welcomed with a gay, friendly irony, and 35 



78 carlyle's essay [v. 

in their closest pressure he bates no jot of heart or hope. 
Vague yearnings of ambition fail not, as he grows up ; 
dreamy fancies hang like cloud-cities around him ; the cur- 
tain of Existence is slowly rising, in many-colored splendor 
5 and gloom : and the aiiroral light of first love is gilding his 
horizon, and the music of song is on his path ; and so he 

walks 

... in glory and in joy, 

Behind his plow, upon the mountain side. 



10^ 



We ourselves know, from the best evidence, that up to 
this date Burns was happy ; nay, that he was the gayest, 
brightest, most fantastic, fascinating being to be found in 
the world ; ^ more so even than he ever afterwards appeared. 
But now, at this early age, he quits the paternal roof ; goes 

1.") forth into looser, louder, more exciting society ; and becomes 
initiated in those dissipations, those vices, which a certain 
class of philosophers have asserted to be a natural prepara- 
tive for entering on active life ; a kind of mud-bath,- in 
which the youth is, as it were, necessitated to steep, and, we 

20 suppose, cleanse himself, before the real toga of Manhood 
can be laid on him. We shall not dispute much with this 
class of philosophers ; we hope they are mistaken : for Sin 
and Remorse so easily beset us at all stages of life, and are 
always such indifferent company, that it seems hard we 

25 should, at any stage, be forced and fated not only to meet 
but to yield to them, and even serve for a term in their 
leprous armada.'^ We hope it is not so. Clear we are, at 
all events, it cannot be the training one receives in this 
Devil's-service,^ but only our determining to desert from it, 

30 that fits us for true manly Action. We become men, not 
after we have been dissipated, and disappointed in the 
chase of false pleasure ; but after we have ascertained, in 
any way, what impassable barriers hem us in through this 
life ; how mad it is to hope for contentment to our infinite 

35 soul from the fjifts of this extremely finite world; that a 



v.] ON BURNS. 79 

man must be sufficient for himself; and that for suffering 
and enduring there is no remedy but striving and doing. 
Manh ood begins when jre have in any way made truce with 
]*f ecessi tv ; begins^even when we have surrendered to iSle- 
cessity, as the most part only do ; but begins joyfully and 5 
hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Neces- 
sity, and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that 
in Necessity we are free. Surely, such lessons as this last, 
which, in one shape or other, is the grand lesson for every 
mortal man, are better learned from the lips of a devout lo 
mother, in the looks and actions of a devout father, while 
the heart is yet soft and pliant, than in collision with the 
sharp adamant of Fate,^ attracting us to shipwreck us, when 
the heart is grown hard and may be broken before it will 
become contrite. Had Burns continued to learn this, as he 15 
was already learning it, in his father's cottage, he would 
have learned it fully, which he never did ; and been saved 
many a lasting aberration, many a bitter hour and year of 
remorseful sorrow. 
5^' It seems to us another circumstance of fatal import in 20* 
Burns's history, that at this time too he became involved in 
the religious quarrels of his district ; that he was enlisted 
and feasted as the fighting man of the New-Light Priest- 
hood, in their highly unprofitable warfare. At the tables 
of these free-minded clergy he learned much more than 25 
was needful - for him. Such liberal ridicule of fanaticism 
awakened in his mind scruples about Religion itself, and a 
whole world of Doubts, which it required quite another set 
of conjurers than these men to exorcise. We do not say 
that such an intellect as his could have escaped similar ">o 
doubts at some period of his history; or even that he could, 
at a later period, have come through them altogether vic- 
torious and unharmed : but it seems peculiarly unfortunate 
that this time, above all others, should have been fixed for 
the encounter. For now, with principles assailed by evil 35 



80 CARLYLE's ESSAY [v. 

example from without, by "passions raging like demons'" 
from within, he had little need of skeptical misgivings to 
whisper treason in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his 
retreat if he Avere already defeated. He loses his feeling 
5 of innocence ; his mind is at variance with itself ; the old 
divinity no longer presides there ; but wild Desires and 
wild Repentance alternately oppress him. Ere long, too, 
he has committed himself before the world ; his character 
for sobriety, dear to a Scottish peasant as few corrupted 

10 worldlings can even conceive, is destroyed in the eyes of 
men ; and his only refuge consists in trying to disbelieve his 
guiltiness, and is but a refuge of lies. The blackest des- 
peration now gathers over him, broken only by red light- 
nings of remorse. The whole fabric of his life is blasted 

15 asunder ; for now not only his character, but his personal 
liberty,- is to be lost ; men and Fortune are leagued for his 
hurt; '• hungry Ruin has him in tlie Avind."""* He sees no 
escape but the saddest of all : exile from his loved country 
to a country in every sense inhospitable and abhorrent to 

20 him. While the ''gloomy night is gathering fast,""* in 
mental storm and solitude, as well as in physical, he sings 
his wild farewell to Scotland : 

Farewell, my friends ; farewell, my foes ! 
My peace with these, my love with those : 
25 The bursting tears my heart declare ; 

/ ^y^ Adieu, my native banks of Ayr ! 

/^Light breaks suddenly in on him in floods; but still a 
false transitory light, and no real sunshine. He is invited 
to Edinburgh ; hastens thither with anticipating heart ; is 

30 welcomed as in a triumph, and with universal blandish- 
ment and acclamation; whatever is wisest, whatever is 
greatest or loveliest there, gathers round him, to gaze on 
his face, to show him honor, sympathy, affection. lUirns's 
appearance ^ among the sages and nobles of Edinburgh must 

35 be regarded as one of the most singular phenomena in 



v.] ON BURNS. 81 

modern Literature ; almost like the appearance of some 
Napoleon among the crowned sovereigns of modern Politics. 
For it is nowise as " a mockery king," set there by favor, 
transiently and for a purpose, that he will let himself be 
treated ; still less is he a mad Rienzi,^ whose sudden eleva- 5 
tion turns his too weak head : but he stands there on his 
own basis ; cool, unastonished, holding his equal rank from 
Nature herself ; putting forth no claim which there is not 
strength in him, as well as about him, to vindicate. Mr. 
L Loc khart has some forcible observations on this point.. 10 

^'^ 'T^t needs no effort of imagination," says he, " to conceive 
what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all 
either clergymen or professors) must have been in the pres- 
ence of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny stranger, with 
his great flashing eyes, who, having forced his way among 15 
them from the plow-tail at a single stride, manifested in the 
whole strain of his bearing and conversation a most thor- 
ough conviction, that in the society of the most eminent 
men of his nation he was exactly where he was entitled to 
be ; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an 20 
occasional symptom of being flattered by their notice ; by 
turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated 
understandings of his time in discussion ; overpowered the 
bon-mots - of the most >celebrated convivialists by broad 
floods of merriment, . .iiu]jregna i5P with all tne burning liie 25 
of genius ; astounded bosdT»sJjabitually enveloped in the 
thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to 
tremble — nay, to tremble visibly — beneath the fearless 
touch of natural pathos ; and all this without indicating 
the smallest willingness to be ranked among those profes- 30 
sional ministers of excitement, who are content to be paid 
in money and smiles for doing what the spectators and 
auditors would be ashamed of doing in their own persons, 
even if they had the power of doing it ; and last, and prob- 
ably worst of all, who was known ^ to be in the habit of 35 




82 carlyle's essay [v. 

enlivening societies which they would have scorned * to ap- 
proach, still more frequently than their own, with elo- 
quence no less magnificent; with wit, in all likelihood still 
more daring; often enough, as the superiors whom he 

5 fronted without alarm might have guessed from the begin- 
ning, and had ere long no occasion to guess, with wit 
uinted at themselves." 
The farther we remove from this scene, the more singular 
ill it seem to us : details of the exterior aspect of it are 

10 already full of interest. Most readers recollect Mr. 
Walker's^ personal interviews with Burns as among the 
best passages of his Narrative : a time will come when this 
reminiscence of Sir Walter Scott's, slight though it is, will 
also be precious : 

v& " As for Burns," writes Sir Walter, " I may truly say, 
Virriilium vidi tantitm.^ 1 was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, 
when he came first to Edinlnirgh, but had sense and feeling 
enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have 
given the world to know liim : but I had ver}^ little ac- 

20 quaintance with any literary people, and still less with the 
gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most fre- 
quented. ]Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk of 
my father's. He knew Burns, and promised to ask him to 
his lodgings to dinner ; but had no opportiinit}' to keep his 

25 word ; otherwise I might have seen more of this distin- 
guished man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late 
venerable Professor Ferguson's,^ where there were several 
gentlemen of literary rpjintation, among whom I remember 
the celebrated Mr. Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters 

30 sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing I remember 
which was remarkal)le in Burns's manner was the effect 
produced upon him b}' a print_ of Bunbury' s.' representing a 
soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on 
one side, — on the other, his widow, with a child in her 

35 arms. These lines were written beneath: 



V-] ON BURNS. 83 

' Cold dn Canadian hills, or Minden's ^ plain, 
Perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain ; 
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew. 
The big drops, mingling with tlie milk he drew, 
Gave the sad presage of his future years, 
The child of misery baptized in tears.' 



^^^ 



■ Burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather by 
the ideas which it suggested to his mind. He actually shed 
tears. He asked whose the lines were ; and it chanced that 
nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half- lo 
forgotten poem of Langhorne's - called by the unpromising 
title of ' The Justice of Peace.' I whispered my information 
to a friend present ; he mentioned it to Burns, who rewarded 
me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, I 
then received, and still recollect, with very great pleasure. 15 
s/^"His person was strong and robust; his manners' rustic, 
not clownish ; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, 
which received part of its effect perhaps from one's know- 
ledge of his extraordinary talents. His features are repre- 
sented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture : ^ but to me it conveys the 20 
idea that they are diminished, as if seen in perspective. I 
think his countenance was more massive ^ than it looks in 
any of the portraits. I should have taken the poet, had I not 
known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of 
the old Scotch school ; i.e., none of your modern agriculturists 25 
who keep laborers for tlieir drudgery, but the douce gude- 
man ^ who held his own plow. There Avas a strong expres- 
sion of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; the eye 
alone, I think, indicated the poetical character and tempera- 
ment. It was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (I so 
say literally gloived) ^ when he spoke with feeling or interest. 
I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I 
have seen the most distinguished men of my time. His 
conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the 
slightest presumption.^- -Among the men who were the most 35 



84 caulyle's essay [v. 

learned of tlieir time and country, he expressed himself with 
perfect hrmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; 
and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to ex- 
press it Jirinly, yet atthesam^tim^ with ^ Wijjeji^ '- I do 
5 not remejuber any part of his conversation distinctly enough 
to be quoted ; nor did I ever see him again except in the 
street, where he did not recognize me, as I could not expect 
he should. He was much caressed in Edinburgh : but (con- 
sidering what literary emoluments have been since his day) 

10 the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling, 

-^^V*' I remember, on this occasion I mention, I thought Burns's 

acquaintance with English poetry was rather limited ; ' and 

also that, having twenty times the abilities of Allan liamsay 

and of Ferguson, he talked of them with too much humility 

X5 as his models : there was doubtless national predilection ^ in 
his estimate. 

j^\i' This is all I can tell you about Burns. I have only to 

'add that his dress corresponded with his manner. He was 

like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird.^ I 

20 do not speak in malam partem* when I say, I never saw a 
man in comjjany with his superiors in station or information 
more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation 
of embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe it, that 
his address to females was extremely deferential, and always 

25 with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous,* wliich en- 
gaged their attention particularly. I have heard the late 
Duchess of Gordon remark this. — I do not know anything 
j'an add to these recollections of forty years since." 

Tonduct of Burns under this dazzling blaze of favor; 
Ihe calm, unaffected, manly manner in which he not only 
bore it, but estimated its value, has justly been regarded as 
the best proof that could be given of his real vigor and in- 
tegrity of mind. A little natural vanity, some touches of 
hypocritical modesty, some glimmerings of affectation, at 

35 least some fear of being thought affected, we could have 




v.] ON BURNS. 85 

pardoned in almost any man; but no such indication is 
to be traced here. In liis unexampled situation the young 
peasant is not a moment perplexed ; so many strange lights 
do not confuse him, do not lead him astray. Nevertheless, 
we cannot but perceive that this winter did him great and 5 
lasting injury.^ A somewhat clearer knowledge of men's 
affairs, scarcely of their characters, it did afford him ; but a 
sharper feeling of Fortune's une(iual arrangements in their 
social destiny it also left with him. He had seen the gay 
and gorgeous arena, in Avhich the powerful are born to play 10 
their parts ; nay, had himself stood in the midst of it ; and 
he felt more bitterly than ever, that here he was but a 
looker-on, and had no part or lot in that splendid game. 

From this_ ti.niP. a ifialous inrljo-na.nt. fpa.T of pnf;.j^,] r1ogi-ar]p_ 

tinn tii]iru_p.n""rri iinn nf hini | and perverts, so far as aught 15 
could pervert, his private contentment, and his feelings 
towards his richer fellows. It was clear to Burns that he 
had talent enough to make a fortune, or a hundred fortunes, 
could he but have rightly willed this ; it was clear also that 
he willed something far different, and therefore could not 20 
make one. Unhappy it was that he had not power to 
choose the one and reject the other; but must halt forever 
between two opinions, two objects ; making hampered 
advancement towards either. But so is it with many 
men : we " long for the merchandise, yet would fain keep 25 
the price ; " and so stand chaffering with Fate, in vexatious 
altercation, till the night come, and our fair is over ! 
u4P The Edinburgh Learned of that period were in general 
T more noted for clearness of head than for warmth of heart: 
with the exception of the good old Blacklock,' whose help 30 
was too ineffectual, scarcely one among them seems to have 
looked at Burns with any true sympathy, or indeed much 
otherwise than as at a highly curious thing. By the great 
also he is treated in the customary fashion ; entertained at 
their tables and dismissed : certain modica -^ of pudding and 35 




86 caulyle's essay [v. 

praise are, from time to time, gladly exchanged for the fas- 
cination of his presence ; which exchange once effected, the 
bargain is finished, and each party goes his several way. 
At the end of this strange season. Burns gloomily sums nj) 

ri his gains and losses, and meditates on the chaotic future. 
In money he is somewhat richer ; in fame and the show 
of happiness, infinitely richer ; but in the substance of it, as 
l)oor as ever. Nay, poorer ; for his heart is now maddened 
still more with the fever of worldly Ambition ; and through 

10 long years the disease will rack him with unprofitable sutfer- 
ings, and weaken his strength for all true and nolilcr aims. 
What Burns was next to do or to avoid — how a man so 
inumstanced was now to guide himself towards his true 
advantage — might at this point of time have been a (piestion 

15 for the wisest. It was a question too, which apparently he 
was left altogether to answer foF himself: of his learned 
or rich patrons it had not struck any individual to turn a 
thought on this so trivial matter. Without claiming for 
Burns the praise of perfect sagacity, we must say, that his 

20 Excise and Farm scheme ' does not seem to us a very un- 
reasonaVile one ; that we should be at a loss, even now, to 
siiggest one decidedly better. Certain of his admirers have 
felt .scandalized at his ever resolving to f/«"i/c ; and would 
have had him lie at the pool* till the sjjirit of Patronage'' 

2-> stirred the waters, that so, with one friendly plunge, all his 
sorrows might be healed. Unwise counselors 1 They know 
not the manner of this spirit; and how, in the lap of most 
golden dreams, a man might have hajipiness, were it not that 
in the interim he must die of hunger ! It reflects credit on 

30 the manliness and stmnd .sen.se of Burns, that he felt so 
early on what ground he was standing; and i)referred self- 
help,* on the humblest scale, to dependence and inaction, 
though with hope of far more splendid possibilities. But 
even these possibilities were not rejected in his scheme : he 

35 might expect, if it chanced that he Inol any friend, to rise, 



t6 



>•/ 



v.] ON BURNS. 87 

in no long period, into something even like opnlence and 
leisure ; while again, if it chanced that he had no friend, he 
could still live in security ; and for the rest, he " did not 
intend to borrow honor from any profession."' We reckon 
that his plan was honest and well-calculated : all turned on 5 
the execution of it. Doubtless it failed ; yet not, we be- 
lieve, from any vice inherent in itself. Nay, after all, it 
was no failure of external means, but of internal, that over- 
took Burns. His was no bankruptcy of the purse, but of 
the soul ; to his last day, he owed no man anything.' 10 

jVIeanwhile he begins well, with two good and wise 
actions. His donation to his mother, munificent from a 
man whose income had lately been seven pounds a year, 
was worthy of him, and not more than worthy. Generous 
also, and worthy of him, was the treatment of the woman- 15 
whose life's -welfare depended on his pleasure. A friendly 
observer might have hoped serene days for him : his mind 
is on the true road to peace with itself : what clearness he 
still wants will be given him as he proceeds ; for the best 
teacher of duties that still lie dim to us is the Practice 20 
of those we see and have at hand. Had the " patrons of 
genius," who could give him nothing, but taken nothing 
from him, at least nothing more ! The wounds of his heart 
would have healed, vulgar ambition would have died away. 
Toil and Frugality would have been welcome, since Virtue 25 
dwelt with them ; and Poetry would have shone through 
them as of old : and in her clear ethereal light, which was 
his own by birthright, he might have looked down on his 
earthly destiny, and all its obstructions, not with patience 
nly, but with love. 30 

But the patrons of genius would not have it so. Pictur- 
esque tourists,^ all manner of fashionable danglers after 
literature, and, far worse, all manner of convivial ]\Ia3ce- 
nases,* hovered round him in his retreat ; and his good as 
well as his weak qualities secured them influence over him. 35 



88 carlyle's essay [v. 

He was flattered by their notice ; and his warm social 
nature made it impossible for him to shake them off, and 
hold on his way apart from them. These men, as we be- 
lieve, were proximately the means of his ruin.' Not that 

5 they meant him any ill ; they only meant themselves a little 
good; if he suffered harm, let him look to it! But they 
wasted his precious time and his precious talent ; they dis- 
turbed his composure, broke down his returniuLj habits of 
temperance and assiduous contented exertion. Their pam- 

10 pering was baneful to him; their cruelty, which soon fol- 
lowed, was eijually baneful. The old grudge against 
Fortune's inecpuility awoke with new bitterness in their 
neighborhood ; and Burns had no retreat but to " the Rock 
of Independence ; '' which is but an air castle after all, that 

15 looks well at a distance, but will screen no one from real 
wind and wet. Flushed with irregular excitement, exasper- 
ated alternately by contempt of others, and contempt of 
himself, Burns was no longer regaining his peace of mind, 
but fast losing it forever. Tliere was a hollowness at the 

20 heart of his life; for his conscience did not now approve 
^hat he was doing. 

'^^-Amid the vapors of unwise enjoyment, of bootless re- 
morse, and angry discontent with Fate, his true loadstar,^ a 
life of Poetry with Poverty, nay with Famine if it must be 

25 so, was too often altogether hidden from his eyes. And yet 
he sailed a sea," where without some such loadstar there 
was no right steering. ]\Ietoors^ of French Politics rise 
before him, but these were not his stars. An accident this, 
which hastened, but did not originate, his worst distresses. 

30 In the mad contentions of that time, he comes in collision^ 
with certain official Superiors ; is wounded l)y them ; cruelly 
lacerated, we should say, could a dead mechanical imple- 
ment, in any case, be called cruel : and shrinks, in indig- 
nant pain, into deeper self-seclusion, into gloomier moodiness 

,35 than ever. His life has now lost its unity: it is a life of 



v.] ON BURNS. 89 

fragments ; led with little aim, l)eyond the melancholy one 
of securing its own continuance, — in fits of wild false joy 
when such offered, and of black despondency when they 
passed away. His character before the world begins to 
suffer : calumny is busy Avith him ; for a miserable man 5 
makes more enemies than friends. Some faults he has 
fallen into and a thousand misfortunes ; but deep criminal- 
ity is what he stands accused of, and they that are not 
without sin cast the lirst stone ' at him ! For is he not 
a well-wisher to the French Kevolution, a Jacobin,- and 10 
therefore in that one act guilty of all ? ^ These accusa- 
tions, political and moral, it has since appeared, were false 
enough : but the world hesitated little to credit them. Nay, 
his convivial Maecenases themselves were not the last to do 
it. There is reason to believe that, in his later years, the 15 
Dumfries aristocracy had partly withdrawn themselves from 
Burns, as from a tainted person, no longer worthy of their 
acquaintance. That painful class, stationed, in all provin- 
cial cities, behind the outmost breastwork of Gentility, there 
to stand siege and do battle against the intrusions of 20 
Grocerdom and Grazierdom, had actually seen dishonor in 
the society of Burns, and branded him with their veto; had, 
as we vulgarly say, cut him ! We find one passage in this 

^Vork of Mr. Lockhart's, which will not out of our thoughts : 
'^^f^" A gentleman of that county, whose name I have already 25 

' more than once had occasion to refer to, has often told me 
that he was seldom more grieved, than when riding into 
Dumfries one fine summer's evening about this time to 
attend a county ball, he saw Burns walking alone on the 
shady side of the principal street of the town, while the 30 
opposite side was gay with successive groups of gentlemen 
and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the 
night, not one of whom appeared willing to recognize him. 
The horseman dismounted, and joined Burns, who on his 
proposing to cross the street said : ' Nay, nay, my young 35 



90 carlyle's essay [v. 

friend, that's all over now ; ' and quoted, after a pause, some 
verses of Lady Grizzel Baillie's ^ pathetic ballad : 

" ' His bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, 

His auld ane look'd better than mony ane's new ; 
5 But now he lets 't wear ony way it will hing,2 

And casts himsell dowie^ upon the corn-bing.* 
Oh, wei'e we young as we ance hae been, 
We suds hae been galloping down on yon green, 
And linking" it ower the lily-white lea ! 
10 And icereiia my heart light, Iioad die.'' 

It was little in Bums's character to let his feelings on cer- 
tain subjects escape in this fashion. He, immediately after 
reciting these verses, assumed the sprightliuess of his most 
pleasing manner ; and taking his young friend home Avith 
.•^S^l5 him, entertained him very agreeably ^ till the hour of the 
all arrived." 
Alas I wlicn we think that Burns now sleeps " where 
bitter indignation can no longer lacerate his heart," ^ and 
that most of those fair dames and frizzled gentlemen already 

20 lie at his side, where the breastwork of gentility is quite 

' thrown down, — who would not sigh over tlie thin delusions 

and foolish toys that divide heart from heart, and make 

inan unmerciful to his brother ! 

3\ O- it was not now' to be hoped that the genius of Burns 

25 would ever reach maturity, or accomplish aught worthy of 
itself. His spirit was, jarred in its melody ; not the soft 
breath of natural feeling, but the rude hand of Fate, was 
now sweeping over the strings. And yet what harmony 
was in him, what music even in his discords ! How the 

30 wild tones had a charm for the simplest and the wisest; 
and all men felt and knew that here also was one of the 
Gifted ! " If he entered an inn at midnight, after all the 
inmates were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from 
the cellar to the garret ; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, 

o5 the landlord and all his guests were assembled ! " Some 



\ 



v.] ON BURNS, 91 

brief pure moments of poetic life were yet appointed him 
in the composition of liis Songs. We can understand how 
he grasped at this employment; and how too, he spnrned 
all other reward for it but what the labor itself brought 
him. For the soul of Burns, though scathed and marred, 5 
was yet living in its full moral strength, though sharply 

t conscious of its errors and abasement: and here, in his 
destitution and degradation, was one act of seeming noble- 
ness and self-devotedness left even for him to perform. 
He felt too, that with all the "thoughtless follies" that'io 
had "laid him low," the world was unjust and cruel to him; 
and he silently appealed to another and calmer time. Not 
as a hired soldier,^ but as a patriot, would he strive for the 
glory of his country : so he cast from him the poor sixpence 
a-day, and served zealously as a volunteer. Let us not grudge 15 
him this last luxury of his existence ; let him not have ap- 
pealed to us in vain ! The ihoney was not necessary to him ; 
he struggled through without it : long since, these guineas 
would have been gone, and now the high-mindedness ^ of 
refusing them will plead for him in all hearts forever. 20 

^^ We are here arrived at the crisis of Burns's life ; for 
matters had now taken such a shape with him as could not 
long continue. If improvement was not to b'e looked for, 
Nature could only for a limited time maintain this dark 
and maddening warfare against the world and itself. We 25 
are not medically informed whether any continuance of 
years was, at this period, probable for Burns ; whether his 
death is to be looked on as in some sense an accidental 
event, or only as the natural consequence of the long series 
of events that had, preceded. The latter seems to be the 30 
likelier opinion; and yet it is by no means a certain one. 
At all events, as we have said, some change could not be 
very distant. TJn:fifi_gaj^^^pi_ile]±veraiicej^ it seems to us, 
were open for BurnsU clear p oetical act ivity ; madness ; or 

■ death. The first, with longer life, was spll possible, though 35 

J 



92 carlyle's essay [m. 

not probable ; for physical causes ' were beginning to be 
concerned in it : and yet Burns had an iron resolution ; 
could he but have seen and felt, that not only his highest 
glory, but his first duty, and the true medicine for all his 

5 woes, lay here. The second was still less probable; for 
his mind was ever among the clearest and firmest. So the 
milder third gate was opened - for him : and he passed, 
not softly yet speedily, into that still country where the 
hail-storms and fire-shoAvers do not reach, and the heaviest- 

10 laden wayfarer at length lays down his load ! 



VI. 

hkr Contemplating this sad end of Burns, and how he sank 
Tinaided by any real help, uncheered by any wise sympathy, 
generous minds have sometimes figured to themselves, with 
a reproachful sorrow, that much might have been done for 

15 him ; that by counsel, true affection, and friendly ministra- 
tions ^ he might have been saved to himself and the world. 
We question whether there is not more tenderness of heart 
than soundness of judgment in these suggestions. It seems 
dubious to us whether the richest, wisest, most benevolent 

20 individual could have lent Burns any effectual help, ('oun- 
sel, which seldom profits any one, he did not need ; in his 
understanding, he knew the right from the wrong as well 
perhaps as any man ever did ; but the persuasion which 
would have availed him lies not so much in the head as in 

25 the heart, where no arguments or expostulation could have 
assisted much to implant it. As to money again, we do not 
believe that this was his essential want ; or well see how 
any private man could, even presupposing Burns's consent, 
have bestowed on him an independent fortune, with mnch 

30 prospect of decisive advantage. It is a mortifying truth,' 
that two men in any rank of society could hardly be found 
virtuous enough to give money, and to take it as a necessary 



f6 



VI.] ON BUENS. 93 

gift, without injury to the moral entireness of one or both. 
But so stands the fact : Friendship, in the old heroic sense 
of that term, no longer exists ; ^ except in the cases of 
kindred or other legal affinity, it is in reality no longer 
expected, or recognized as a virtue, among men. A close 5 
observer of manners has pronounced "Patronage," that 
is, pecuniary or other economic furtherance, to be "twice 
cursed ; " ^ cursing him that gives, and him that takes ! And 
thus, in regard to outward matters also, it has become the 
rule, as in regard to inward it always was and must be the 10 
rule, that no one shall look for effectual help to another ; 
but that each shall rest contented with what help he can 
afford himself. Such, we say, is the principle of modern 
Honor ; naturally enougli growing out of that sentiment of 
Pride which we inculcate and encourage as the basis of our 15 
whole social morality.^ Many a poet has been poorer than 
Burns; but no one was ever prouder: we may question 
whether, without great precautions, even a pension from 
Royalty would not have galled and encumbered, more than 
actually assisted hiin. 20 

Still less, therefore, are we disposed to join with another 
class of Burns's admirers, who accuse the higher ranks 
among us of having ruined Burns by their selfish neglect of 
him. We have already stated our doubts whether direct 
pecuniary help, had it been offered, would have been ac- 25 
cepted, or could have proved very effectual. We shall read- 
ily admit, however, that much was to be done for Burns; 
that many a poisoned arrow might have been warded from 
his bosom ; many an entanglement in his path cut asunder 
by the hand of the powerful ; and light and heat, shed on 30 
him from high places, would have made his humble atmos- 
phere more genial ; and the softest heart then breathing * 
might have lived and died with some fewer pangs. Nay, 
we shall grant farther, and for Burns it is granting much. 



94 carlyle's essay [vi. 

that, with all his pride, he would have thanked, eveu with 
exaggerated gratitude, any one who had cordially befriended 
him : patronage, unless once cursed, needed not to have 
been twice so. At all events, the poor promotion he desired 
5 in his calling might have been granted : it was his own 
scheme, therefore likelier than any other to be of service. 
All this it might have been a luxury, nay it was a duty, for 
our nobility to have done. No part of all this, however, 
did any of them do, or apparently attempt or wish to do: 

10 so much is granted against them. But Avliat then is the 
amount of their blame ? Simply that they were men of 
the world, and walked by the principles of such men ; that 
they treated Burns as other nobles and other commoners 
had done other poets ; as the English did Shakespeare ; ^ as 

15 King Charles and his Cavaliers did Butler; as King Philip ^ 
and his Grandees did Cervantes.^ Do men gather grapes of 
thorns;* or shall Ave cut down our thorns for yielding only 
a fence and haws ? How, indeed, could the " nobility and 
gentry of his native land " hold out any help to this " Scot- 

20 tish Bard, proud of his name and country " ? Were the 
nobility and gentry so much as able rightly to help them- 
selves ? Had they not their game to preserve ; their bor- 
ough interests to strengthen ; dinners, therefore, of various 
kinds to eat and give ? AVere their means more than ade- 

2.') quate to all this business, or less than adequate ? Less 
than adequate, in general ; few of them in reality were 
richer than Burns ; many of them were poorer ; for some- 
times they had to wring their supplies, as with thumbscrews, 
from the hard land, and, in their need of guineas, to forget 

30 their duty of mercy ; which Burns was never reduced to do. 
Let us pity and forgive them. The game they preserved 
and shot, the dinners they ate and gave, the borough inter- 
ests they strengthened, the little Babylons* they severally 
builded by the glory of their might, are all melted or melt- 

35 ing back into the primeval Chaos, as man's merely selfish 



VI.] ON BURNS. 95 

endeavors are fated to do : and here was an action, extend- 
ing, in virtue of its wordly influence, we may say, through 
all time ; in virtue of its moral nature, beyond all time, 
being immortal as the Spirit of Goodness itself : this action 
was offered them to do, and light was not given them to do 5 
it. Let us pity and forgive them. But better than pity, 
let us go and do otherwise} Human suffering did not end 
with the life of Burns ; neither was the solemn uiandate,- 
"Love one another, bear one another's burdens," given to 
the rich only, but to all men. True, we shall find no Burns lO 
to relieve, to assuage ^ by our aid or our pity ; but celestial 
natures, groaning under the fardels* of a weary life, we 
shall still find; and that wretchedness which Fate has 
rendered voiceless and tuneless is not the least wretched, but 
the most. 15 

In Still, we do not think that the blame of Burns's failure 
lies chiefly with the Avorld. The world, it seems to us, 
treated him with more rather than with less kindness than 
it usually shows to such men. It has ever, we fear, shown 
but small favor to its Teachers : ^ hunger and nakedness, 20 
perils and revilings, the prison, the cross, the poison chalice '^ 
have in most times and countries been the market-price it 
has offered for Wisdom, the welcome '' with which it has 
greeted those who have come to enlighten and purify it. 
Homer ^ and Socrates ^ and the Christian Apostles ^" belong 25 
to old days ; but the world's Martyrology was not completed 
with these. Roger Bacon " and Galileo ^- languish in priestly 
dungeons ; Tasso^^ pines in the cell of a mad-house; Camoens " 
dies begging on the streets of Lisbon. So neglected, so '^ per- 
secuted they the Prophets," ^^ not in Judea only, but in all 30 
places where men have been. We reckon that every peet 
of Burns's order is, or should be, a prophet and teacher to 
his age ; that he has no right to expect great kindness from 
it, but rather is bound to do it great kindness ; that Burns, 
in particular, experienced fully the usual proportion of the 35 



96 carlyle's essay [vi. 

world's goodness ; and that the blame of his failure, as we 

-/-have said, lies not chiefly with the world. 

J / Wliere, then, does it lie ? We are forced to answer. 
With himself; it is his inward, not his outward misfortunes 

5 that bring him to the dust. Seldom, indeed, is it otherwise; 
seldom is a life morally wrecked but the grand cause lies in 
some internal mal-arrangement, some want less of good for- 
tune than of good guidance. Nature fashions no creature 
without implanting in it the strength needful for its action 

10 and duration ; least of all does she so neglect her master- 
piece and darling, the poetic soul. Neither can we believe 
that it is in the jjower of am/ external circumstances utterly 
to ruin the mind of a man ; nay, if proper wisdom be given 
him, even so much as to affect its essential health and 

15 beauty. The sternest sum-total ' of all worldly misfortunes 
is Death ; nothing more can lie in the cup of human woe : 
yet many men, in all ages, have triumphed over Death,^ 
and led it captive ; converting its physical victory into a 
moral victory for themselves, into a seal and immortal con- 

20 secration for all that their past life had achieved. What 
has been done may be done again : nay, it is but the degree 
and not the kind of such heroism that differs in different 
seiisons; for without some portion of this spirit, not of bois- 
terous daring, but of silent fearlessness, of Self-denial in 

25 all its forms, no good man, in any scene or time, has ever 
^ttained to be good. 

We have already stated the error of Burns; and mourned 
6ver it, rather than blamed it. It was the want of unity 
in his purposes, of consistency in his aims ; the hapless 

.■;o attempt to mingle in friendly union the common spirit of 
the world with the spirit of poetry, which is of a far differ- 
ent and altogether irreconcilable nature. Burns was noth- 
ing wholly; and Burns could be nothing — no man formed 
as he was can be anything — by halves. The heart, not of 

35 a mere hot-blooded, popular Verse-monger, or poetical Res- 



H 



VI.] ON BURNS. 97 

taurateur,^ but of a true Poet and Singer, worthy of the okl 
religious heroic times, had been given him ; and he fell in 
an age, not of heroism and religion, but of skepticism, self- 
ishness, and triviality, when true Nobleness was little under- 
stood, and its place supplied by a hollow, dissocial, altogether 5 
barren and unfruitful principle of Pride. The influences of 
that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to say nothing 
of his highly untoward situation, made it more than usually 
difficult for him to cast aside, or rightly subordinate ; - the 
better spirit that was within him ever sternly demanded its 10 
rights, its supremacy : he spent his life in endeavoring to 
reconcile these two;"^ and lost it, as he must lose it, Avithout 
reconciling them. 

Burns was born poor ; and born also to continue poor, for 
e Avould not endeavor to be otherwise: this it had been 15 
well could he have once for all admitted, and considered as 
Anally settled. He was poor, truly ; but hundreds even of 
his own class and order of minds have been poorer, yet have 
suffered nothing deadly from it : nay, his own father had a 
far sorer battle with ungrateful destiny than his was ; * and 20 
he did not yield to it, but died courageously warring, and 
to all moral intents prevailing, against it. True, Burns 
had little means, had even little time for poetry, his only 
real pursuit and vocation ; but so much the more precious 
was what little he had. In all these external respects his 25 
case was hard ; but very far from the hardest. Poverty, 
incessant drudgery and much worse evils, it has often been 
the lot of Poets and wise men to strive with, and their 
glory to conquer. Locke ^ was banished as a traitor ; and 
wrote his Essay on the Human Understanding sheltering 30 
himself in a Dutch garret. Was Milton rich or at his ease 
when he composed Paradise Lost ? Not only low, but 
fallen from a height ; not only poor, but impoverished ; in 
darkness " and with dangers compassed round, he sang his 
immortal song,' and found fit audience, though few. Did 35 



1 



98 CARLYLE's essay [vi. 

not Cervantes finish his work, a maimed soklier and in 
prison? Nay, was not the Araiicana,^ which Spain acknow- 
ledges as its Epic, written without even the aid of paper, on 
scraps of leatlier, as the stout fighter and voyager snatched 

5 any moment from that wild warfare ? 

(i^ And what, then, had these men, which Burns wanted ? 
'Two things; both which, it seems to us, are indispensable 
for such men. They had a true, religious principle of 
morals ; and a single, not a double aim in their activity. 

10 Tiiey were not self-seekers and self-worshipers ; but seekers 
and worshipers of something far better than Self. Not 
personal enjoyment was their object; but a high, heroic 
idea- of Religion, of Patriotism, of heavenly AVisdom,' in 
one or the other form, ever hovered before them ; in which 

15 cause they neither shrank from suffering, nor called on the 
earth to witness it as something wonderful ; but patiently 
endured, counting it blessedness enough so tp si)end and 
be spent. Thus the '"golden calf^ of Self-love," however 
curiously carved, was not their Deity; but the Invisible 

20 Goodness, which alone is man's reasonable service.^ This 
feeling was as a celestial fountain, whose streams refreshed 
into gladness and beauty all the provinces of their otherwise 
too desolate existence. In a word, they willed one thing to 
which all other things were subordinated and made subserv- 

25 lent; and therefore they accomplished it. The wedge will 
rend rocks ; but its edge must be sharj) and single : if it be 

. double, tlie wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing. 

j^l Part of this superiority these men owed to their age; in 
Avhich heroism and devotedness were still practiced, or at 

30 least not yet disbelieved in : but much of it likewise they 
owed to themselves. With Burns, again, it was different. 
His morality, in most of its practical points, is that of a 
mere worldly man ; enjoyment, in a finer or coarser shape, 
is the only thing he longs and strives for.^ A nol)le instinct 

35 sometimes raises him above this ; but an instinct only, and 



VI.] ON BURNS. 99 

acting only for moments. He has no Eeligion;^ in the 
shallow age where his clays were cast, Religion was not 
discriminated from the New and Old Light forms of Reli- 
gion ; and was, with these, becoming obsolete in the minds 
of men. His heart, indeed, is alive with a trembling ado- 5 
ration, but there is no temple in his understanding. He lives 
in darkness and in the shadow of doubt. His religion, at best, 
is an anxious wish ; like that of Rabelais,- " a great Perhaps." 
C} He loved Poetry warmly, and in his heart ; could he but 
have loved it purely, and with his whole undivided heart, it 10 
had been well. For Poetry, as Burns could have followed 
it. is but another form of Wisdom, of Religion; is itself 
Wisdom and Religion. But this also was denied him. _His 
poetry is a stray, vagrant gleam, which will not be extin- 
guished within him, yet rises not to be the true light of his 15 
l^ath, Init is often a wildfire that misleads him. It was not 
necessary for Burns to be rich, to be or to seem " indepen- 
dent;" but it was necessary for him to be at one Avith his 
own heart ; to place Avhat was highest in his nature highest 
also in his life ; " to seek within himself for that consistency 20 
and sequence which external events would forever refuse 
him." He was born a poet ; poetry was the celestial ele- 
ment of his being, and should have been the soul of his 
whole endeavors. Lifted into that serene ether,^ whither he 
had wings given him to mount, he would have needed no 25 
other elevation : poverty, neglect and all evil, save the 
desecration of himself and his Art, were a small matter 
to him ; the pride and the passions of the world lay far 
beneath his feet ; and he looked down alike on noble and 
slave, on prince and beggar and all that wore the stamp of 30 
man, with clear recognition, with brotherly affection, with 
sympathy, with pity. Nay, we question whether, for his 
culture as a Poet, poverty and much suffering for a season 
were not absolutely advantageous. Great men, in looking 
back over their lives, have testified to that effect. " I would 35 



100 CARLYLE's essay [vi. 

not for much," says Jean Paul/ ".that I had been born 
richer." And yet Paul's birth was \poor enough ; for, in 
another place, he adds, '' The prisoners allowance is bread 
and water; and I had often only the latter." But the gold 
5 that is refined in the hottest furnace cqmes out the purest ; 
or, as he himself expressed it, '* the canaiW bird sings sweeter 

/ the longer it has been trained in a darkened cage." 

(pW-A man like Burns might have divided ^his hours between 
poetry and virtuous industry ; industry which all true feel- 

10 ing sanctions, nay prescribes, and which has a beauty, for 

that cause, beyond the pomp- of thrones : but to divide his 

hours between poetry and rich men's banquets was an ilh 

. starred and inauspicious attempt. How could he be at ease at 

such banquets ? What had he to do there, mingling his music 

.15 with the coarse roar of altogether earthly voices; brighten- 
ing the thick smoke of intoxication with fire lent him from 
heaven ? ^ Was it his aim to eiijoy life ? To-morrow he 
must go drudge as an Exciseman ! We wonder not that 
Burns became moody, indignant, and at times an offender 

20 against certain rules of society ; but rather that he did not 
grow utterly frantic, and run amxick ^ against them all. 
How could a man, so falsely placed by his own or others' 
fault, ever know contentment or peaceable diligence for an 
hour? What he did, under such perverse guidance, and 

25 what he forbore to do, alike fill us with astonishment at the 
>* natural strength and worth of his character. 
\f^ Doubtless there was a remedy for this perverseness ; but 
not in others; only in himself; least of all in simple in- 
crease of wealth and worldly " respectability." We hope 

30 we have now heard enough about the efficacy of wealth for 
poetry and to make poets happy. Nay, have we not seen 
another instance of it in these very days ? Byron,* a man 
of an endowment considerably less ethereal than that of 
Burns,* is born in the rank not of a Scottish plowman but 

35 of an English peer : the highest worldly honors," the fairest 



(4 



VI.] ON BURNS. 101 

worldly career, are his by inheritance ; the richest harvest 
of fame he soon reaps, in another province, by his own 
hand. And what does all this avail him ? Is he happy, is 
he good, is he true? Alas, he has a poet's soul, and strives 
towards the Infinite and the Eternal ; and soon feels that 5 
all this is but mounting to the house-top to reach the stars ! 
Like Burns, he is only a proud man ; might, like him, have 
" purchased a pocket copy of Milton to study the character 
of Satan ; " for Satan also is Byron's grand exemplar, the 
hero of his poetry, and the model apparently of his con- 10 
duct. As in Burns's case too, the celestial element will not 
mingle with the clay of earth ; both poet and man of the 
world he must not be ; vulgar Ambition will not live kindly 
with poetic Adoration ; he cannot serve God and Mammon.^ 
Byron, like Burns, is not happy ; nay, he is the most 15 
wretched of all men. His life is falsely arranged : the fire 
that is in him is not a strong, still, central fire, warming 
into beauty the products of a world ; but it is the mad fire 
of a volcano ; and noAv — we look sadly into the ashes of a 
rater, which ere long will fill itself with snow ! 20 

Byron and Burns were sent forth as missionaries to their 
generation, to teach it a higher Doctrine, a purer Truth; 
they had a message to deliver, which left them no rest till ■ 
it was accomplished; in dim throes of pain, this divine 
behest lay smoldering within them; for they knew not 25 
what it meant, and felt it only in mysterious anticipation, 
and they had to die without articulately uttering it. They 
are in the camp of the Unconverted ; yet not as high mes- 
sengers of rigorous though benignant truth, but as soft 
flattering singers, and in pleasant fellowship, will they live 30 
there : they are first adulated, then persecuted ; they accom- 
plish little for others ; they find no peace for themselves, 
but only death and the peace of the grave. We confess, 
it is not without a certain mournful awe that we view the 
fate of these noble souls, so richly gifted, yet ruined to so 35 



102 CARLYLE's essay [vt. 

little purpose with all their gifts. It seems to us there is a 
stern moral taught in this piece of history, — twice told us 
in our own time ! Surely to men of like genius, if there 
be any such, it carries with it a lesson of deep, impressive 
5 significance. Surely it would become such a man, furnished 
for the highest of all enterprises, that of being the Poet of 
his Age, to consider well what it is that he attempts, and in 
what spirit he attempts it. For the words of Milton^ are 
true in all times and were never truer than in this, "He 

10 who would write heroic poems must make his whole life a 
heroic poem." If he cannot first so make his life, then let 
him hasten from this arena ; for neither its lofty glories 
nor its fearful perils are fit for him. Let him dwindle into 
a modish balladmonger ; let him worship and besing the 

15 idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him, 
if, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity ! Byron 
and Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the fire of their 
own hearts consumed them ; and better it was for them that 
they could not. For it is not in the favor of the great or of 

20 the small, but in a life of truth, and in the inexpugnable 
citadel of his own soul, that a Byron's or a Burns's strength 
must lie. Let the great stand aloof from him, or know 
how to reverence him ! Beautiful is the union of wealth 
with favor and furtherance for literature ; like the costliest 

25 flower jar enclosing the loveliest amaranth. Yet let not 
Uhe relation be mistaken. A true poet is not one whom 
they can hire by money or flattery to be a minister of their 
pleasures, their Avriter of occasional verses, their purveyor 
of table wit ; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be 

30 their partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no such 
union be attempted ! Will a Courser of the Sun - work 
softly in the harness of a Dray-horse ? His hoofs are of 
fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to 
all lands ; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale 

35 for earthly appetites from door to door ? 



VI.] ON BUPtNS. 103 

^jiC But we must stop short in these considerations, which 
*w-ould. lead us to boundless lengths. We had something to 
say on the public moral character of Burns ; but this also we 
must forbear. We are far from regarding him as guilty 
before the world, as guiltier than the average ; nay, from 5 
doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. 
Tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that where the Ple- 
hiscita^ of common civic reputations are pronounced, he has 
seemed to us even there less worthy of blame than of pity 
and wonder. But the world is habitually unjust in its judg- 10 
ments of such men ; unjust on many grounds, of which this 
one may be stated as the substance : It decides, like a court 
of law, by dead statutes ; and not positively but negatively, 
less on what is done right than on what is or is not done 
wrong. Not the few inches of deflection from the mathe- 15 
matical orbit, which are so easily measured, but the ratio of 
these to the whole diameter, constitutes the real aberration. 
This orbit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the 
solar system ; or it may be a city hippodrome ; - nay, the cir- 
cle of a gin-horse : ^ its diameter,* a score of feet or paces. 20 
But the inches of deflection only are measured : and it is 
assumed that the diameter of the gin-horse, and that of the 
planet, will yield the same ratio ^ when compared with them ! 
Here lies the root of many a blind, cruel condemnation 
of Burnses, Swifts,*' Rousseaus,^ which one never listens to 25 
with approval. Granted, the ship comes into harbor Avith 
shrouds and tackle damaged; the pilot is blameworthy; 
he has not been all-wise and all-powerful : but to know 
how blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been 
round the Globe, or only to Ramsgate^ and the Isle of Dogs.^ 30 
^ With our readers in general, with men of right feeling 
mywhere, we are not required to plead for Burns. In pity- 
ing admiration he lies enshrined in all our hearts,^" in a far 
nobler mausoleum than that one of marble ; neither will his 
Works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of 35 



104 caklyle's essay 

men. While the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like 
mighty rivers through the country of Thought, bearing 
fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl fishers ^ on their 
waves; this little Valclusa- Fountain will also arrest our 
eye : for this also is of Nature's own and most cunning work- 
manship, bursts from the depths of the earth, Avith a full 
gushing current, into the light of day ; and often will the 
traveler turn aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse 
among its rocks and pines ! 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

BURNS. 

For facts and critical comments in regard to the life and works of 
Burns, the following may be found useful : 

Chambers's Life and Works of Robert Burns (4 vols.) ; Chambers's 
Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotchmen; Paterson's 
Works of liohert Burns (G vols.) ; the lives or memoirs of Burns 
by Lockhart, Currie, Cunningham, Blackie, IShairp, Setoun, Leslie 
Stephen (in Xalional Dictionary of Biography, etc.). See also 
Genius and Character of Burns, by Prof. Wilson ; Literary His- 
tory of England, etc., by Mrs. Oliphant ; Literature of the Euro- 
pean Era, by Minto ; Ward's English Boets ; EncyclojHvdia 
Britannica, and the other cyclopedias; Taine's, Angus's, Mor- 
ley's (Tyler's ed.), and the other treatises on English Literature; 
articles in the Edinburgh Eevieuj, Vols. 13, 48 ; London Quar- 
terly, 1st Vol.; Stevenson's Familiar Studies of Men and Books ; 
and other essays mentioned in Poole's Index. See also Allibone's 
Dictionary of Authors ; Emerson's 3Iiscellanies ; Hawthorne's 
Our Old Home; Henley and Henderson's Poetry of Burns; the 
Camelot Classics ; Shairp's Aspects of Poetry, etc. 

The student who cares to traverse and survey a still wider field of 
criticism on ^urns and his works, and particularly on Tarn o' 
Shanter and the Cotter's Saturday Night, will do well to examine 



ON BURNS. 105 

the long lists in "Welsh's Unglish Masterpiece Course, pp. 118-121, 
published by Silver, Burdett & Company, Boston, New York, and 
Chicago. 



*o"- 



CARLYLE. 

Life of Carlijle, by Garnett ("Great Writers" Series) ; by Stephen 
("National Dictionary of Biography") ; and by Nichol ("Eng- 
lish Men of Letters" Series). See Bayne's Lessoiis from My 
Musters, Carhjle, Tennyson, and Buskin; .Japp's Three Great 
Teachers of Our Own Time ; Masson's Carlyle Personally and in 
His Writings ; Symington's Personal Beminiscences of Carlyle ; 
Hutton's Modern Guides of English Thought in flutters of Faith; 
Fronde's Life of Thomas Carhjle (4 vols.) ; and Norton's Corre- 
spondence (of Carlyle with Emerson, Goethe, etc.), Letters, and 
Beminiscences. See, too, Adams's Dictionary of English Litera- 
ture; Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature; Morley's 
Critical Miscellanies ; Matthew Arnold's Discourses in America 
(the lecture on Emerson) ; and magazine articles in Poole's Index 
to Periodical Literature. The student who wishes to go still 
deeper into what we may term "Carlyleana" will find a cai'efuUy 
prepared list of critics and commentators, with full references, in 
Vi^Glsli's English 3Iasterpiece Course, pp. 190, 191. 

Among the critical commentaries, perhaps the most noteworthy is that 
of Taine in his English Literature (Van Laun's translation, Vol. 
2, p. 436 et seq.). He gives Carlyle forty pages characterized 
by keen insight, vivid imagination, and masterly eloquence ; yet, 
like everything of Taine's, it is " Frenchy " : we feel that in Car- 
lyle's soul there are depths which the great French critic never 
penetrated. For a just and intelligent estimate of the relations 
that existed between Carlyle and his wife see the work of the 
Oliphants {The Victorian Age of English Literature). 




106 



NOTES. 



ABBREVIATIONS. 



The following abbreviations are used in tlie Notes. ThoK. . g 

to the titles of books in tlie Bible and of Shakespeare's p' ily 

need explanation. 



Ante, earlier in this book. 

Ar., Arabic. 

A. 8., Anglo-Saxon. 

Beaum., Beaumont. 

B.C., before Christ. 

Bio<r., biography. 

Brachet, " Brachet's French 
Etymological Diction- 
ary." 

Celt., Celtic. 

Cent., Century (Diction- 
ary). 

Class., Classical (Diction- 
ary). 

Comus, Milton's "Masque 
ofComus." 

Cot. Fr. Diet., Cotgrave's 
" French Dictionary." 

Cyclop., Cyclopedia. 

Dan., Danish. 

Diet., Dictionary. 

Du., Dutch. 

E., English or early. 

Ed., edition. 

Eng., English. 

Etc., ei cetera, and the rest. 



and 



'Fai- 



' Vari- 



Et wAj., et sequentia 
the following. 

Faerie Q., Spenser's ' 
ry Queen." 

fr., from. 

Fr., French. 

Furness, Furness's 
orum Edition." 

Gael., Gaelic. 

G., or Germ., German 

Gr., Greek. 

Heb., Hebrew. 

Hist., History. 

lb., or ibid., ibidem, m i 
same. 

Icel., Icelandic. 

Id., idem, the same. 

I.e., id est, that is. 

Int. Diet., " Webster's In- 
ternational Dictionary." 

Ital., Italian. 

Lat., Latin. 

Lit., Literature. 

Mid. Eng., Middle English 
(about 1350-1550). 

Nat., National. 



i\Iurray"s 
a Diction- 



New E: 

"N' 
ar- 
O. 
le. 

nal, or originally. 
, " Paradise Lost." 
jg., " Paradise Ke- 
ed." 
, later in this book. 
js., present (in gram- 
mar). 
Q. v., quod (or quetn) vide, 

which (or whom) see. 
S., or 8h., or Shakes., Shake- 
speare, [mar). 
Sing., .singular (in gram- 
Skeat, Skeat's " Etymologi- 
cal Dictionary of the Eng- 
lish Language." 
Univ., Universal. [tion." 
Var. Ed., " Variorum Edi- 
Wb., "Webster's Diction- 
ary." 
Wore, "Worcester's Dic- 
tionary." 



Page 39. 1. " Butler " (Samuel, 1612-1680), " the glory and the 
scandal of the age," wrote " Hudibras," a merciless satire upon the 
Puritans, often characterized as "the best burlesque poem in the lan- 
guage." Dryden, begging the payment of his own salary, wrote, "It 
is enough for one age to have neglected Mr. Cowley and starved Mr. 
Butler." Other facts about Butler ? — " ask for bread," etc. Matthew 
vii. 9. 

107 



108 NOTES. 

2. "spinning-jenny." Invented by James Hargreaves in 1767, it 
^hrew out of employment many weavers, who drove him from Lan- 
cashire. He died in poverty in 1778. Is Carlyle, then, right in his 
assertion ? 

3. "Like the apostle," etc. Luke iv. 24; xi. 49 ; etc. 

4. "aggravation," etc. How so ? 

5. "retribution." Lat. re, hack, t7-ibuere, to pay ; retribuere, to 
rec,uite. Matthew xxiii. 29. 

6 "Robert Burns," etc. The essay was written in 1828. How 
old would Burns have been at the time ? 

7. " prime of his manhood," etc. Age at death ? 

8. 't brave." See Si^rague's edition of "The Tempest," I. ii. 6. 

9. ".'mausoleum." Named from Mausolus, king of Caria, is.c. 
377-353. See " Class. Diet." 

10. " siiines." Sarcasm ? — "Huge, cumbrous, unsightly," its dome 
covered witii tin, it stands in an angle of St. Michael's churchyard at 
Dumfries. The monuments in memoiy of him at Ayr and Edinburgh 
are better. 

11. "Sixth." There were more than five before, of which the 
most important were those by Currie, AValker, Croniek, Heron, and 
Paterson. — By a word, or phrase, or very brief sentence, characterize 
the contents of this paragraph. 

12. "Lockhart" (John Gibson, 1794-1854), son-in-law and biog- 
rapher of Sir Walter Scott, wrote "The Life of Robert Burns," which 
gave rise to Carlyle's essay. 

Page 40. 1. "No man . . . valet." This saying, often attrib- 
uted to Madame de S^vign^ (1626-1696), is perhaps traceable to Plu- 
tarch (a.d. 50-120). 

2. " Lucy's," etc. About the year KiOO Thomas Betterton, the 
actor (1635-1710), picked up at Stratford a tradition that young 
Shakespeare was engaged by his frolicsome companions in the robbery 
of Sir Thomas Lucy's park of deer near Charlecote Hall, three miles 
from Stratford. In 1789 the dramatic editor, Nicholas Howe, in his 
account of Shakespeare, on the authority of Betterton relates this 
tradition ; and also that Shakespeare sportively proposed as an epitaph 
on John-a-Combe, a Stratford gentleman noted for his wealth and 
usury, the following: — 

" Ten-in-the-Hundred lies here ingrav'd ; 
'Tis a Imndred to ten his soul is not sav'd. 
If any man asks, ' Who lies in this tomb ? ' 
' Oh, ho ! ' quoth the Devil, ' 'tis my John-a-Combe.' " 



NOTES. 109 

(i.e. my John has come!) See Halliwell-Phillipps' "OutUries," I., 
Preface, xii.; pp. 67-76 ; also II. 76, for other facts of interest here. 

3. "bowels" = hearts? Colossians iii. 12. Metaphor found in the 
original Greek, the bowels being the supposed seat of mercy. Un- 
abridged dictionaries, pal'ticularly the "New Eng. Diet." of Murray. 

4. "Excise." Internal revenue? — "Caledonian Hunt." Cale- 
donia is the old Latin name of the territory of the Britons in the 
Highlands or northwest of Scotland. The "Caledonian Hunt" was 
an organization of many of the nobility and gentry, and to it Burns 
dedicated the first Edinburgh edition of his poems. — "Ayr writers." 
In Scotland, "writer" often means lawyer, attorney, or chief clerk, 
who prepares warrants, writs, etc. 

5. "New and Old Light Clergy." Hostile theological parties; 
progressives v. conservatives. The state church (Presbyterian) was 
divided into two hostile camps. Burns sided with the radicals against 
the strict Calvinists, whom he bitterly satirizes in several poems. 

6. " difficult to measure him," etc. 

" Every age 
Appears to souls who live in it (ask Carlyle) 
Most unheroic. . . . Every age, 
Through being beheld too close, is ill discerned 
By those who have not lived past it. We'll suppose 
Mount Athos carved, as Persian Xerxes schemed, 
To some colossal statue of a man : 
The peasants gathering brushwood in his ear, 
Had guessed as little of any human form 
Up there, as would a flock of browsing goats. 
They'd have, in fact, to travel ten miles off 
Or ere the giant image broke on them." 

— Mrs. Browning. 

"Dr. Currie " (James, 1756-1805), a Scottish physician. He pub- 
lished in 1800, for the benefit of Burns's widow and orphans, a good 
edition of " Burns." 

Page 41. 1. " Walker" (.Josiah), a fine scholar, native of Ayr- 
shire. His memoir of Burns was prefixed to a volume of the poems 
in 1811. — "in the same kind." Correct use of kind? Sprague's 
"Hamlet," L ii. 65. 

■ 2. " not painting a portrait," etc. Says Goldsmith (preface to his 
"Chinese Letters," 1763), " The schoolmen had formerly a very exact 
way of computing the abilities of their saints and authors. Escobar, 



110 NOTES. 

for instance, was said to have learning as five, genius as four, and 
gravity as seven. Caramuel was greater tlian he. His learning was 
as eight, his genius as six, and his gravity as thirteen. Were I to 
estimate the merits of our Cliinese I'liilosopher by the same scale, I 
would not hesitate to state his genius still higher ; but as to his learn- 
ing and gravity, these, I tliink, might safely be marked as nine 
hundred and ninety-nine, witliin one degree of absolute frigidity." 

3. "Constable" (Archibald, 1774-1827) was the noted Edinburgh 
publisher witli whom Sir Walter Scott was unfortunately a partner. 
His "Miscellany" was a series of cheap rei^ints of standard works 
for popular reading. See Lockhart's " Life of Scott." 

Page 42. 1. " Birkbeck " in 1818 publislied "Notes of a Journey 
in America from the coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois." 
He blames the Americans for laziness, but extols them to the skies for 
their uniform courtesy and politeness. 

2. "backwoods." In "Carlyle" this term includes almost all of 
America, except a narrow fringe along the Atlantic. E.g. Emerson's 
home. Concord, is in Carlyle's "Western Woods." — Express in a 
dozen words the contents of this paragraph. 

3. " The great end of biography." What ? 

4. " How did the world," etc. This question, and those which 
follow — are they a sufficient test ? Would proper answers " furnish 
a model of perfection in Biography"? Note in tliis paragraph the 
" moderate, even apologetic phrases." From them, and from "numer- 
ous repetitions of ' as we believe,' ' we tliink,' etc., which occur in the 
first part of this essay," and which are quite unlike the usual bold 
dogmatic manner of Carlyle, it has been inferred that Jeffrey's editing 
of it is evident. Rightly ? — Sum up as concisely as possible the sub- 
stance of this paragraph. 

Page 43. 1. "Burns first came," etc. What epoch or event of 
his life is here referred to ? Test the successive strong statements here. 

2. " most mournful death." Read in the biographies the story of 
his disappointments, intemperance, poverty, neglect, and pain ! 

3. " now nothing to be done" ! 

" How proud NVe can press to the funeral array 
Of him whom we shunned in his sickness and sorrow ! 
And bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day 
Whose pall shall be borne up by heroes to-morrow ! " 

4. The "nine days." The phrase "nine days' wonder," which is 
sometimes said to have originated in tlie fact that Lady Jane Grey 




NOTES. Ill 

(1537-1554) was for nine days nominally queen of England, is trace- 
able to the fourteenth century. 

5. " had his very materials to discover." Not new ? newly brought 
to light ? 

Page 44. 1. "Titan." The Titans were six sons and six daugh- 
ters of Uranus (Heaven) and Gfea (Earth), therefore brothers and 
sisters of Saturn. They deposed their father, but were themselves 
cast out of Olympus by Jove ! See Sprague's edition of "Paradise 
Lost," I. 198 ; also " Class. Diet." — Gist of this paragraph ? 

2. "Ferguson" (Rot .t, 1761-1774), author of "The Farmer's 
Ingle," from which Burns drew the idea of his "Cotter's Saturday 
Night," died in a lunatic asylum. Burns erected a monument over 
his neglected grave in Edinburgh. 

3. "Ramsay" (Allan, 1085-1758) was author, in 1725, of "The 
Gentle Shepherd," a pastoral play in five acts, full of humor and senti- 
ment, with delightful lyrics interspersed. Other facts in regard to him? 
See Morley's "Manual of English Literature," Minto's "Literature 
of the Georgian Era," Ward's " English Poets," Vol. III., etc. 

4. "darksome, drudging childhood." " The cheerless gloom of a 
hermit with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave," says Burns. 

Page 45. 1. " Alas, his sun shone," etc. Study this eloquent 
passage. Analyze to discover the ingredients of its power. Truth, 
sentiment, imagery, sonorous melody ? — Designate, with all possible 
brevity, the substance of this paragraph. 

2. " Criticism . . . should be a cold business." Ought it so to be ? 

3. "not chiefly as a poet," etc. Do you concur ? 

4. "advised to write a tragedy." Lockhart, pp. 211, 317. 

5. "Sir Hudson Lowe" (1769-1844), a stern British general, 
governor of St. Helena during Napoleon's captivity there (1815-1821). 

(). "amid the melancholy main." Quoted from Stanza xxx. of 
"The Castle of Indolence," of James Thomson (1700-1748). 

7. " Their fall, like that of a pyramid." How ? 

Page 46. 1. "Eternal Melodies." Ger. Eioigen MeXodien. 
Carlyle is fond of German phrases. In his " Stump Orator" (1850), 
he writes, "All human talent, especially all deep talent, is a talent 
to do, and is intrinsically of silent nature ; inaudible, like the Sphere 
Harmonies and Eternal Melodies." In a letter to Emerson (1837), 
he speaks of " an ear for the Eioigen 3Ielodien, which pipe in the 
winds around us, and utter themselves forth in all sounds and sights 
and things: 7iot to be written down by gamut-machinery." For the 
doctrine of the "Music of the Spheres," see under "Pythagoras," 



112 NOTES. 

in the larger •' Class. Diet. ;" Plato's " De Republica," X.; Hooker's 
"EccleLv Tolity," V. 38 ; Sprague's ed. of Milton's "Nativity Ode ; " 
Shakespeare's " Mer. of Yen." (Sprague's ed.), V. i. 60-65.* 

2. "The most precious gift," etc. Is this true? Reasons for 
your opinion ? — Summarize with utmost brevity the sense of this 
paragraph. 

3. "The 'Daisy.'" See this exquisite poem, jjosi. Note the sad 
prophecy of its last three stanzas. ^ 

4. "wee, cowering," etc. See, post, the lines "To a Mouse." 
Observe the foreboding in its last stanza. 

5. "thole," endure ; "dribble," drizzle. 

7. "cranreuch," white-frost; "cauld," cold; " it raises," etc. 
SeeBurns's "Journal," 1784. 

9. "loves to walk in the sounding woods," etc. "This expression 
and the following quotation is Isic'] evidently adapted from a passage 
in an extract from one of Burns's letters." Farrand. 

10. " on the wings," etc. Psalm civ. 

Page 47. 1. "nut-brown maiden." The famous dialogue ballad, 
entitled "The Nut-Brown Maid," dates from near the end of the 15th 
century. " Diet, of Noted Names of Fiction ; " Percy's " Reliques ; " 
Prior's " Henry and Emma." "The poetic dream of Petrarch," says 
Taine, "has become the exact picture of deep and perfect conjugal 
affection, such as yet survives in England ; such as all the poets, from 
the authoress of the " Nut-Brown Maid " to Dickens, have never failed 
to represent." "Eng. Lit.," I. ii. p. 160. 

2. "paragon." "Tempest," II. i. 72, Sprague's ed. 

3. " Arcadian." Situated in the interior of the Peloponnesus, shut 
in by mountains, Arcadia, the quiet, picturesque home of shepherds, 
was imagined to be an earthly paradise, the abode of simplicity, 
innocence, and love. See the charming description in Sidney's 
"Arcadia ; " also Mahaffy's " Rambles and Studies in Greece." 

4. " in the highest." What? 

5. "a noble pride." So had Sam. Johnson and Carlyle himself. 
Illustrate. See note on "the sentiment of pride," near the end of this 
essay. 

6. ".supercilious." Lat. super, above; cilmm, eyelid; super- 
ciliuni, eyebrow. Hence ? 

7. "majesty," etc. Illustrate by quotation. 

8. " relief from." Better, relief through ? 

* " Such harmony is in iiniiiortal souls." 



NOTES. 113 

Page 48. 1. "generous credulity," 1 Corinth, xiii. 7. 

" Love is kind, and suffers long ; 
Love is meek, and thinks no wrong ; 
Love than death itself more strong : 

Therefore give us love." Illustrate. 

2. "^olian." Gr. aJoAos, Aiolos, the changeable one; ^olus, 
god of the winds. Appropriateness of this comparison ? — Give a 
phrase or brief sentence correctly characterizing this paragraph. 

3. "Brief, broken glimpses," etc. Metaphor? 

4. " unprofitable and unfair. " Why so ? 

5. "read more," etc. = read more extensively and more eagerly ? 
or read with continually increasing eagerness ? 

G. "virtuosos." Lat. vir, a manly man; virtus, manliness; Itah 
virtii and vertu, a love of the fine arts, or a taste for curiosities ; 
virtuoso, a person skilled in the polite or elegant arts, or in curiosi- 
ties. What fact in regai'd to Italian character is taught by the 
descent of this word? (See Goldsmith's "Traveller," 111-164.) 
Similarly the word cicerone. 

Page 49. 1. "from the palace to the hut," etc. True now? 
true of any other poet ? likely to be the fact in the future, notwith- 
standing dialect ? How should we label this paragraph ? 

2. "sincerity," etc. Carlyle's estimate of this excellence in 
" Heroes and Hero-Worship " ? Can it be overestimated ? 

.3. "Horace's." Quintus Horatius Flaccus (b.c. G5 to a.d. 8). 
This elegant Latin poet, in his famous " Art of Poetiy " (Ars Poetica, 
line 102), lays down the oft-quoted rule, 

4. *S't vis me flere, dolendum est primwn ipsi tibi, if you wish me 
to weep, you yourself must feel grief. — Contents of this paragraph ? 

Page 50. 1. " Affectation." Is this sure to result? 

2. "Cant," etc. Has Carlyle rightly singled out the bane ? 

3. " How often does," (do ?) etc. Is this overstated ? 

4. "Byron" (George Gordon, Lord, 1788-1824) wrote, among other 
works, "Childe Harold" (1812 and later), " Tlie Giaour" (1813, 
pron. jour, on as in our), and "Don .Juan" (after 1817). All the 
critics note that his leading characters are phases of Byron himself ; 
but is he justly chargeable with insincerity ? Says Matthew Arnold, 
concurring with Swinburne: " Even of his passionate admirers, how 
many never got beyond the theatrical Byron, from whom they caught 
the fashion of deranging their hair, or of knotting their neck-hand- 
kerchief, or of leaving their shirt-collar unbuttoned ? How few pro- 



114 NOTES. 

foundly felt his vital influence, the influence of his splendid and 
imperishable excellence of sincerity and strength ! " 

5. "strong waters." Distilled liquors, "fire water," "Jersey 
lightning," etc. 

6. " Giaour." Pers. prater, infidel ; a form of ghebir, fire worshiper. 
A term applied by Turks to those not Mohammedans, especially to 
Christians. 

Page 51. 1. "theatrical, false, affected." Is this just ? 

2. "to read its own consciousness without mistakes." Could 
Burns? See the paragraph beginning, "Properly speaking," a little 
past the middle of this essay. — Sum up in briefest possible phrase the 
gist of this paragraph. 

Page 52. 1. "Shakespeare himself ... bombast," etc. So Gold- 
smith thought, "Essay" xvi. One critic, concurring with Carlyle, 
cites, as "an example of this, 'Macbeth,' Act I., Scene ii., lines 56 
ff." But it is dangerous to criticise Shakespeare : the attack usually 
recoils. We may say of his taste, as De Quincey says of Milton's 
metrical skill and sensibility, "On any attempt to take liberty with a 
passage of his, you feel as when coming in a forest upon what seems 
a dead lion : perhaps he may not be dead, but only sleeping ! nay, per- 
haps he may not be sleeping, but only shannning ! . . . after all, there 
may be a plot in it!" The "Macbeth" lines are not inappropriate to 
the character and the circumstances. Perhaps the following may bet- 
ter illustrate bombast : — 

" Ont, out, thou strumpet. Fortune ! All you gods, 
In general synod, take away her power ; 
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel. 
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven 
As low as to the fiends ! " — " Hamlet," II. ii. 

2. "His style becomes simple," etc. Note the reasons Carlyle 
gives for the inferiority of Burns's prose style to that of his poetry. 
" Style," says Lowell, " is the establishment of a perfect mutual Istc^ 
understanding between the worker and his material." 

3. " Mrs. Dunlop." Surprised and delighted with Burns's "Cot- 
ter's Saturday Night," and other poems (in the first edition, 1786), 
she " instantly sent an express to Mossgiel, distant sixteen miles from 
her residence, with a very kind letter to Burns." A friendship en- 
sued, most honorable to both. See " Lockhart," "Chambers," 
"Blackie," "Shairp," etc. See ten stanzas of " The Cotter's Satur- 
day Night," post. — Paragraph summary. 



NOTES. 115 

4. "Making all subjects interesting." Herein genius ? Genius, the 
power to see further and deeper, feel more keenly, conceive more vividly, 
originate more rapidly, express more delicately and strongly, but most 
of all to work very long and very hai'd ? " Lecture on Shakespeare." 

Page 53. 1. " rose -colored Novels and iron-mailed Epics." Of 
Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849) ? Jane Austen (1775-1817) ? "Wal- 
ter Scott (1771-1832) ? James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) ? Lord 
Byron ? Thomas Moore (1779-1852) ? Poet-laureate Robert Southey 
(1774-1843), with his "Epics," "Joan of Arc," "Thalaba," "Curse 
of Kehama," etc. ? 

2. "nearer the moon." Hence lunatic ? moonstruck ? — "Virgins 
of the Sun . . . Knights . . . Saracens . . . Chiefs," etc. ; p.g. in 
Moore's " Lalla Rookh," Scott's "Talisman" and "Ivanhoe," Byron's 
"Poems of the East," Cooper's "Leather-Stocking Tales," etc. 

3. "truculent." Sanscrit druh, to wish to kill; Lat. trux, trucis, 
fierce, bloodthirsty. 

4. " a great moralist," etc. Is the analogy good ? Is the doctrine 
sound ? 

5. "Homer (about 1000 b.c. ?) . . . native Greece." 

"■Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Bhodos, Argos, Athenae.'"' 

" Seven Grecian towns contend for Homer dead, 
Through which the living Homer begged his bread." 

6. "two centuries before." Supposed date of the Trojan War ? — 

7. " ephemeral." Gr. eVi, epi, for ; 7)ixipa, hemera, a day ; icp-fi/xepos. 
ephemeros, lasting for a day. — Comprehensive thought of this para- 
graph ? Express it with utmost brevity. 

Page 54. 1. "Fifth act of a Tragedy in every deathbed," etc. 
In every tragedy, three points or crises probably are in strong contrast ; 
the beginning of the struggle, the climax, and the catastrophe. See 
Freytag's "Technique of the Drama," Chap. II., Sec. ii. 

2. "Laughter," etc. 

' ' Sport that wrinkled care derides 
And Laughter holding both his sides." 

— "L'Allegro," 31, 32. 

Carlyle's question reminds us of Gratiano's talk in " Mer. of Ven." I. i. 

3. "vates." Lat. probably akin to fa, root of fa)'e; Gr. (p-/iij.i, 
phemi, to speak. Orig. a speaker ; afterwards an inspired speaker ; 
foreteller, prophet ; often a poet (supposed to speak from inspiration); 
a soothsayer. 



116 NOTES. 

4. "Delphi," a small town in Phocis (on the steep slope of 
Parnassus, one of the chief seats of the Muses). It contained the 
most famous of the oracles of Apollo. 

5. "Minerva Press." In Burns's day this Loudon establishment 
flooded the country with morbidly sentimental trash. — "elder drama- 
tists." Elizabethan? 

6. "in the tongue, not in the heart," etc. Yet, "From the begin- 
ning of Elizabethan Literature, whoever had written had been con- 
stantly playing on words and with them. Fantastically extravagant 
as .such verbal quibbles generally were, they resulted in an unsurpassed 
vocabulary. Combine .such mastery of vocabulary with an instructive 
sense that words are only the symbols of actual thoughts, and your 
quibbler or punster becomes a wit of the first quality. Such a sense 
of the identity of word and thought characterized Shakespeare from 
the beginninix." Wendell's " William Shakespeare." 

Page 55. 1. "Dan." Chief city of the most northerly district of 
Canaan. "Beersheba" was near the southern limit. Hence "Dan 
to Beersheba" (Judges xx. 1) = end to end of the country. 

2. "Borgia." Of this ambitious Italian family in the last of the 
15th and the first of the 16th century, Caesar Borgia (1457-1507), 
brave, fascinating, unscrupulous, was perhaps the most devili.sh. " No 
deed was savage or base enough to cost him any remorse," says Fisher. 
Look up his story. 

3. "Luther" (Martin, 1483-154G) was a man of passionate soul 
and tremendous energy. See the histories. 

4. "Mossgiel." Burns went there at twenty-five in 1784, and 
remained fouryears, during which he wrote some of his choicest poetry. 

5. "Tarbolton " in Ayrshire was his home during the seven yeare 
next preceding. 

0. "Mr. Crockford" is said by Abcrnethy to have opened his 
fashionable gambling club-house in London in 1849. But see " Century 
Cyclopedia of Names." 

7. "Tuileries." This famous palace in Paris, adjacent to the 
Louvre, was begun (15G4) by Catharine de Medici, fini.shed by Lnuis 
XIV. (Louis Le Grand, 1008-1715), and burned by the commune in 
1871. — Sum up this paragraph. 

8. "Poetry about that date vanished." Milton ("Par. Lost," 
IX. 44) seems to countenance the idea that "as civilization advances, 
poetry almost necessarily declines." 

" Unless an age too late, or cold 
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing." 



NOTES. 117 

Is the theory -sound ? See Macaulay's "Essay on Milton;" Chan- 
ning's " Remarks on the Character and Writings of John JMilton." 

9. "cobweb speculations," etc. Carlyle observation of Scottish 
fields? 

10. "an impossibility," etc. A strong statement. In what sense 
true? 

11. "not the dark place that hinders, but the dim eye." Other 
illustrations besides that afforded by Burns ? 

12. " Wounded Hare." " Verses on seeing a wounded hare limp 
by me." See post. 

13. "Halloween." A.S. hcdig, holy; Old Eng. haloioe, a, saint; 
halowene (genitive plu.), of the saints; Scotch e'ew, evening. The 
evening (Oct. 31) is still "celebrated." The poem is too long and 
too full of Scotch dialect to warrant our quoting it. 

Page 56. 1. "Druids." Among the ancient Celts they com- 
bined the functions of lawgivers, bards, prophets, priests, judges, 
physicians, and philosophers. See "Encyclopedia Britannica." — 
"Theocritus" of Syracuse, author of Greek idyls in the 3d century 
B.C., and imitated by Vergil, Milton, and others, was, more than any 
other, the father of pastoral poetry. See " Class. Diet." 

2. "Idyl." Gr. eZSoy, etrfos, appearance, figure ; iiSvWiov, eidylli07i, 
a descriptive poem. 

3. " Holy Fair." This is a common phrase in western Scotland 
for a summer gathering of " Old Light" rustics met to partake of the 
Holy Communion. Invited by Fun, the poet accompanies her and 
Superstition and Hypocrisy to the Fair, whose scenes he describes 
with over-bitter but irresistibly comic satire. 

4. " Council of Trent." The great Roman Catholic Council, which 
assembled (1545) at Trent, in the Tyrol. Cyclopedias and histories. 

5. "Roman Jubilee." A solemn season in the Roman Catholic 
Church, usually occurring once in twenty-five years. Heb. yobel, a 
blast of a trumpet, a shout of joy. — Concentrate in half a dozen words 
the sense of this paragraph. 

6. "Rugged sterling worth," etc. Is this too strongly .stated? 
Test. 

Page 57. 1. "burin." Ital. fton'no, an instrument for piercing ; 
Fr. bxirin, a graver ; graving tool. "Brachet." 

2. "Retzsch" (Moritz, 1779-1857), a German painter, famed for 
his etchings illustrating Goethe and Schiller. — Characterize the essence 
of this paragraph. 

3. "This last excellence." Define it. How reconcile this claim 



118 NOTES. 

with what he has said of "sincerity" as "the root of most other 
virtues, literary as well as moral " ? 

4. "Boreas." Gr. ^opfas, boreas ; Russian ftorei, north ; Lat. Bo- 
reas, the north wind. Skeat suggests that it may have meant orig. 
" the mountain wind." See the poem, post. 

5. "doure," stern, stubborn. 

6. "gies," gives. 

7. "lift," sky (akin to loft, Icel. lopt, air). 

8. "ae," one. 

9. "burns," streams (Gael, bttrn, water. See bourn). 

10. " wreeths," wreaths ; A.S. loraed, akin to writhe, twist. 

11. " bock'd," gushed, vomited. 

Page 58. 1. " Auld Brig." See Burns's " Brigs of Ayr." 

2. "haunted Garpal." Like Fabidosiis Hydaspes, quoted by Car- 
lyle from Horace ("Odes," I. xxii. 8), Hydaspes famed in story. 
Goldsmith, in his " Traveller," calls it " famed Hydaspes." Fabulosus 
is like "storied" in "II Penseroso," 159, and in Gray's "Elegy." 

3. " thowes," thaws. 

4. " snaw-broo," snow-broth, slushy water. 

5. " rowes," rolls. 

6. " spate " (or " speat "), torrent, flood. 

7. " Glenbuck," source of the river. 

8. " Rattonkey " (or " Rottonkey "), a landing near the mouth of 
the Ayr. 

9. "gumlie," muddy. 

10. " jaups," jets, splashes, waves dashed up. 

11. " Poussin " (Nicholas, 1594-1665), "The Raphael of France," 
styled by Ruskin "the principal master of the classical landscape." 
"Biog. Diet." 

12. " Farmer's." See Burns's "Auld Farmer's Salutation to Auld 
Mare Maggie." 

13. "smithy," shop of a smith; blacksmith shop. — "Cyclops." 
Three Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, .sons of Uranus (Heaven) 
and Ge (Earth), were fabled by Ilesiod (about 735 u.c.) to forge 
thunderbolts for Jove under iEtna or the volcanoes of Lemnos and 
the Lipari islands. Farrand, Boynton, and Abernethy think that 
Carlyle here " refers to the charming story of Odysseus and Polyphe- 
mus, the sheep-raising and man-eating giant, in the ninth book of the 
Odyssey." But no smithy is described there, nor in the ^T^neid, IH. 
See Vergil's magnificent description in the iEneid, VIII. 416-453. 

14. "Cyclops." Gr. kvk\os, kuklos, or cyclos, circle; il>\f/, ops, 



NOTES. 119 

eye ; Kvic\u\p, ktiklops, or cyclops, the round-eyed. Each of these 
gigantic beings had one round eye in the centre of his forehead. 
"Class. Diet." 

15. "Priam's chariot." " Iliad," XXIV. — " Burn-the-wind " = 
(10) Burnewin = blacksmith. Vivid word-painting, calling up bel- 
lows and forge ? 

17. " Scotch Drink." See two stanzas of this poem, ^'os^- — Sum- 
marize this paragraph. 

Page 59. 1. " Homer surpasses all." True ? — "in this quality." 
Is it properly termed a " quality " ? 

2. "Richardson" (Samuel, 1689-1761), one of the earliest and 
ablest of English novel writers, published " Pamela " (1740), "Clarissa 
Harlowe " (1748), and " Sir Charles Grandison " (1753). Is Carlyle's 
estimate too high ? 

3. "Defoe" (Daniel, 1661-1731). His father's name was Foe. 
Daniel adopted the prefix. He wrote "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), 
"A Journal of the Plague Year" (1722), "Roxana" (1724), and 
about 200 other works. His "Review," begun in 1704, was one of 
the earliest attempts at periodical literature. More about Defoe and 
Richardson? "Taine," III. vi. ; "AUibone," etc. 

4. " red-wat-shod " = red-wct-shod = over-shoe {i.e. more than shoe- 
deep) in blood. 

5. "too frightfully accurate," etc. Possible? Entitle this para- 
graph. 

6. "vigor of his strictly intellectual perceptions." Differentiate 
this expression and "clearness of sight," and "impetuous force of 
conceptions." 

7. " Stewart" (Dugald, 1753-1828), author of important works on 
mental and moral philosophy, long a professor in the University of 
Edinburgh. IMentioned later in this essay. 

Page 60. 1. "Keats" (John, 1795-1821), a worshiper, not of 
force, like Carlyle, but of beauty ; all sweetness ; author of " Hyperion," 
"Lamia," "Ode to the Nightingale," "Eve of St. Agnes," and the 
epitaph,* indelible in men's souls, though carved on his tomb, " Here 
lies one whose name was writ in water." More of his life ? 

2. " Hell of Dante " (Alighieri, 1265-1.321). His matchless work, 
which he modestly entitled "The Divine Comedy," is a threefold 
allegorical vision ( ' ' Inferno, Purgator io, Paradiso " ) . The poet is con- 
ducted through the ten circles of the first by Vergil, and there he seems 

* Suggested, doubtless, by Shakespeare in " Henry VIII.," IV. ii. 46. 



120 NOTES. 

to behold " all the woe of all the universe." Over the entrance gate 
of hell is the inscription, 

'•All hope abandon, ye who enter here !" 

3. "Shakespeare" (William, 1564-1616) shows more genius in the 
creation and development of characters than in the origination of plots 
or the structure of plays ? 

4. " Novum Organum." Bacon's new method of arriving at truth 
by observation and induction was set forth in his "Novum Organum" 
(= new instrument), first sketched in 1007, completed in 1620. See 
Macaulay's " Essay on Bacon." May we not say of Bacon, as I-kner- 
son does of Plato, " We can in some sort nestle into Plato's brain ; 
not so into Shakespeare's; we are still out of doors" ? — Label this 
paragraph. 

5. " Burns is fine, as well as strong," etc. In what sense is " fine " 
here used ? 

Page 61. 1. "wonders in the passage," etc. Is the statement 
omittfd through carelessness ? 

2. "doctrine of association "=*' the psychological reason for the 
very familiar phenomenon of which Burns .shows his appreciation 
below (paragraph 23)" [Farrand] ? "the combination or connection 
of states of mind, or their objects, with one another; as the result of 
which, one is said to be revived, or repre.sented, by means of the other" 
[Porter] ? — Cliaracterize this paragraph by a descriptive phrase. 

.3. " We know nothing," etc. This is from a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, 
Jan. 1, 1780. See Wordsworth's lines on "Tintern Abbey" and on 
" Immortality." Mrs. Dunlop and tlie ^Eolian harp have already been 
mentioned. — Summary of the paragraph. 

Page 62. 1. " Keenness of insight . . . keenness of feeling." Is 
"kt'onni-ss" the best word ? Would "depth of insight . . . intensity 
of feeling" be better? Your reason ? "I thought me on the ourie," 
etc. See " A Winter Night," ;)os<. 

2. "ourie," cowering, shivering, drooping. 

3. "bide," abide, endure. 

4. " brattle," race, attack, noisy hurry, 
b. "lairing," wading, sinking. 

6. "sprattle," struggle, scramble. 

7. "scar," Icel. sker, Swedish .s'/ivir, bare rock, cliff. 

Page 63. 1. '• Ilk," each, every. A.S. " ilk," "ylc," the same ; 
fr. -i," he, and "lik," like. 
2. "happing," hopping. 



NOTES. 121 

3. "chittering," shivering, trembling (with cold). 

4. "indifferent." So Shakespeare in "Julius Cfesar," "Dangers 
are to me indifferent." 

5. "the very Devil." Milton has been blamed by Thomas 
Arnold, Heniy Reed, and others for not making Satan wholly bad. 
But is not Milton's conception psychologically correct ? "Milton," 
says Lowell, " can do justice to great devils, but not to little ones ! " 

C. " auld Nickie-ben," etc. Carlyle here quotes the last stanza of 
Burns's "Address to the De'il." Aidd we know, and JVickie, the 
Old Nick ; but what is ben ? Added for rhyme ? 

7. "wad," would. 

8. "men'," mend. 

9. " aiblins," perhaps. 

10. "dinna," do not. 

11. "ken," know. 

12. "stake," chance. 

13. "wae," woe; woeful, sorry. 

14. "Dr. Slop." An uncharitable " doctor of ^)/i/si7,-." 

15. "Uncle Toby." In the "Tristram Shandy" of Laurence 
Sterne (1713-1768), Dr. Slop is choleric, Uncle Toby sweet-souled. 
"There is Sterne, too, the refined and silly blackguard, who, amid 
his buffooneries and oddities, pauses to weep over an ass or an imagi- 
nary prisoner." Taine. — Pith of this paragraph ? 

16. "Indignation makes verses." Fi'om Juvenal's (Decimus 
Junius, the Roman satirist, a.d. 38-120) Facit indignntio versus. 

17. "inverted Love." Is not Carlyle's explanation the true one? 
Are bitter biting verses likely to be true poetry ? 

18. "Johnson" (Samuel, 1709-1784), biographer, essayist, lexi- 
cographer, verse writer, and most powerful of conversers. He said, 
"Dear Bathurst was a man to my very heart's content; he hated a 
fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig ; he was a vet-y good 
hater." See "Boswell." 

Page 64. 1. "a good hater is still a desideratum," etc. In 
" Model Prisons " (in "Latter Day Pamphlets," 1850) Carlyle writes : 
" Caitiff, we hate thee, and discern for some six thousand years now, 
that we are called upon by the whole Universe to do it. Not with a 
diabolic but with a divine hatred." — Embody in a word or two the 
contents of this paragraph. 

2. "Dweller," etc. See the ode, posf. 

3. "Furies." The Erinyes (Gr. 'Ep»/u6s, the angry ones), called 
euphemistically "Eumenides" (Gr. Ei'^e;'i5ey, the gracious or kindly 



122 NOTES. 

disposed ones), were properly three : Alecto (Gr. 'aatj/ctw, the impla- 
cable one), Tisiphone (Gr. TKri^Jt-r;, avenger of murder), and Mega^ra 
(Gr. M67ai/)a, Megaira, the gi-udger or envier). They had snaky locks, 
blood-dripping eyes, flaming torches. " Class. Diet." 

4. "^Eschylus" (b.c. 525-456). Earliest and loftiest of Greek 
dramatists. He has the Furies for chorus in his great tragedy, "The 
Eumenldes." 

6. "infernal Pit." "Par. Lost," I. 657. 

6. "darkness visible." See Sprague's ed. of "Par. Lost, I. 63. 
Note alliteration and meter, both, as in "Shakespeare," used by, or 
of, supernatural beings. " Macbeth," Sprague's ed., IV. i. 10 ; "Mid- 
summer N. Dr.," II. i. 

7. "mark (thou, her) who." 

8. "Noosing." Lat. nodus; Fr. noued, a knot; notter, to tie 
up? Farrand thinks it may mean nnrsiitg ! See line 12 of "Tam 
o' Shanter," post. 

9. "Baited," etc. The editors do not seem to know that Shake- 
speare liad written "baited witli the rabble's curse." — " Bait." Icel. 
beita, to make, to bite. To "bait a bear," is to make the dogs bite 
him. Skeat. See Sprague's ed. of " Macbeth," V. viii. 29. Is the Oswald 
ode as sublime as Carlyle thinks it ? Substance of the paragraph ? 

11. " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled." Analyze the " argument " 
of this song (post) and memorize. 

12. " dithyrambic," a dithyramb, a poem in a wild irregular 
strain ; orig. a song boisterously sung by revelers in honor of Bacchus 
(to whom the epithet AiOvpan^os, Dithyrambus, was sometimes applied.) 

13. " On horseback." So was Scott's " Marmion " ? 

14. " the best," etc. Call to mind and compare those of Campbell, 
Tennyson, Pierpont, Ilalleck, etc. — Essence of the paragraph? 

Page 65. 1. " Macpherson's Farewell." James Macpherson, exe- 
cuted ill 1700, was a Highland robber of giant strength, yet a skilful 
violinist. In prison, he composed a song beginning as follows : — 

"I've spent my time in rioting, 
Debauclied my health and strength: 
I squandered fast as pillage came, 
And fell to .shame at length : 
But dantonly and wantonly 

And rantonly I'll gae ; 
I'll play a tune and dance it ronn' 
Beneath the gallows tree." 



NOTES. 123 

He is said to have actually played his tune under the gallows, and 
then offered his violin to any one who would come and take it. No 
one coming up, he smashed it across his knee and flung away the frag- 
ments. See Burns's song to the same air, post. 

2. "Celt." The Celts were of two branches: Gaelic from Spain, 
Cymric from Belgium and the north of France ; the former, the an- 
cestors of the Irish and Highland Scotch ; the latter, of the Welsh. 

3. " Cacus " (Gr. Ka/c6s, cacos., bad), son of Vulcan, was a monster 
robber inhabiting a cave in Mt. Aventine. Into it he dragged Her- 
cules' oxen by the tails backward, so that their tracks appeared to lead 
outward ! But the hero heard them bellow, unroofed the cavern, and 
choked to death the fire-belching giant. For further particulars, see 
"^Eneid," VIII. 190-267. 

4. "sturt," struggle, disturbance. Sturt is akin to Du. stortem, 
to hurl, rush, fall. 

5. "Nimrod," a mighty hunter. Genesis x. 8, t) ; 1 Chronicles i. 
10. Did he found Babylon ? 

0. "Napoleon." Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). More about 
him ? 

7. "of poetry," etc. The Gaelic Celt had lively imagination, was 
joyous, musical, sensitive to honor, fervent in religion. 

8. "Thebes," chief city of Boeotia, scene of the action in some 
of the greatest tragedies of ^Eschylus and Sophocles. 

9. "Pelops," King of Phrygia, a grandson of Jupiter, and sou 
of Tantalus, and the father of Atreus, and grandfather of Agamem- 
non. The crimes and misfortunes of his fated "line " were fruitful 
themes to the Grecian dramatists. Milton's stately verses in "II 
Penseroso " are famous : — 

" Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy 
In sceptred pall come sweeping by. 
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line. 
Or the tale of Troy divine." 

10. "Material Fate." The underlying idea of the great Greek 
tragedies, man's Free-will vainly struggling in the grip of Fate, is 
perhaps best illustrated in the wonderful "CEdipus" of Sophocles. 
— Designate, by epithet or phrase, the substance of this paragraph. 

11. " Humor." Differentiate humoi*, wit, drollery. How does 
love manifest itself in humor ? 

Page 66. 1. " Address to the Mouse." 
2, "Farmer's Mare " begins thus : — 



124 NOTES. 

" A guid New-year I wish thee, Maggie ! 
Hae, there's a rip to thy aiild baggie : 
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie, 

I've seen the day 
Thou could hae gaen like onie staggie 

Out-owre the lay." 

It ends with, — 

" And think na, my auld, trusty servan'. 
That now in-ihaps thou's less doscrvin', 
And thy auld days may end in starvin' 

For my last few, 
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane 

Laid by for you. 

" We've worn to crazy years together ; 
We'll toyte about wi' ane anither. 
Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tither, 

To some hained rig, 
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather 

Wi' .sma' fatigue." 

3. "Elegj' on poor Mail ie." See post. 

4. "Sterne" (Laurence, 17i:]-1708). It is a pity that the writ- 
ings of one whom Carlyle characterizes as "our best specimen of 
humor" should be soiled with indecency. — Condensed "argument" 
of this paragraph. 

6. "Tanj o' Slianter." Burns th()ught this his best, and mo.st 
critics since his day have agreed with him. He says in letter to Mrs. 
Dunlop, April 11, ITfll : "I look on Tam o' Shanter to be my chief 
performance in the poetical line." Why, then, is Carlyle less com- 
])limpntary ? Nute how different is Carlyle's point of view from that 
of most men. Apply his tests. See the poem, post. 

6. "Tieck" (Ludwig, 1773-1853), poet, critic, satirist, wrote 
fantastic novels and translated Shakespeare. "Tieck," said Carlyle, 
" is no ordinary man ; he is a true poet, born as well as made." 

7. "Musiius" (.Tohann Karl August, 1735-1787), satirist, wrote 
" Folk-Tales of the Germans," " Friend Hein's Apparition.s," etc. 
Carlyle declares that "he attempts not to deal with the deeper feelings 
of the hrart ... is in fact no poet." 

Page 67. I. "Ayr." See map and gazetteer. — " Tophet," east 
or southeast of Jerusalem, in the valley of Ilinnom, was an unclean 



NOTES. 125 

"dumping-ground." Here fires were kept burning to consume the 
carcasses and otlier offal ; 

"Tophet thence, 
And black Gehenna called, the type of hell." — " Par. Lost," I. 405. 

Show by a phrase what Carlyle thinks " Tarn o' Shanter " is, and is not. 

2. "The Jolly Beggars." The poem is too long to quote and too 
coarse. It was first published in 1801. The scene is in Mauchline. 

3. "raucle," sturdy, bold. 

4. "carlin," old woman, crone (Icel. and Swedish karl, man ; 
A.S. ceoi-l, fellow; carl, male ; dim. carlin). 

5. " wee Apollo," " a pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle." 

6. "Son of Mars," a soldier. 

7. "Poosie (i.e. pussy ?) Nancy" keeps the alehouse (Rag-castle). 
Page 68. 1. "Caird" (Iri.sh ceanl, a tinker), a traveling tinker, 

tramp, sturdy beggar, fortune teller. 

2. " callets," loose women. 

3. " wassail," noisy, drunken frolic, carousal. See Sprague's edition 
of "Macbeth," I. vii. 64; Sprague's "Hamlet," I. iv. 9. 

4. "Teniers" (ten'yers) (David, the elder, 1582-1G49 ; David, the 
younger, 1610-1604), Flemish painters of tavern subjects. See "Cen- 
tury Magazine," September, 1895, for sketch of the son, who excelled 
his father. 

5. "The Beggar's Opera" (of the dramatic poet, John Gay, 1688- 
1732), acted in London in January, 1728, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was 
a political satire, a parody and caricature of the Italian opera, and a 
great success. 

6. " Beggar's Bush," a comedy sometimes ascribed to Francis 
Beaumont (1586-1615) and John Fletcher (1579-1625). "Century 
Cyclopedia of Names." Abernethy, usually very correct, says it is 
by Beaumont, written in 1661 ! 

7. "Cantata," a musical composition comprising. choruses, solos, 
interludes, etc., somewhat dramatically arranged. — Enumerated merits 
of "The Jolly Beggars" in this paragraph? 

8. "Music of the heart." Illustrate. 

9. " best that Britain has yet produced." Should We say the same 
now ? 

Page 69. 1. "of quality " = of birth (or station) superior to that 
of the masses ? 

2. "madrigals," little simple amorous poems, usually pastoral. 
See Sprague's edition of Milton's " Comus," 495. 



12G NOTES. 

3. "Ossorius" (Osorio, Geronymo, 1506-1580), flatteringly styled 
"The Cicero of Portugal," but characterized by Bacon as of "weak 
and vvaterish vein." 

4. "Limbo" (Lat. limbus, border), a region beyond earth and on 
the borders of Paradise. Here, awaiting the Judgment, are souls not 
good enough for heaven and not bad enough fur purgatory or hell. 
See Milton's astonishing description, "Paradise Lost," III. — Give a 
phrase that may serve as the exponent of this paragraph. 

5. "In themselves are music." See Coraon's " Primer of English 
Verse;" Lanier's "Science of Vei-se ; " Carlyle's "The Hero as 
Poet," and his paragraph on "Tarn o' Shanter." 

G. "in the medium of Harmony." How explain his schoolmaster's 
declaration that Robert's ear was remarkably dull, and his voice un- 
tunable ? "It wa.s long," he says, "before I tould got him to dis- 
tinguish one tune from another." — "fashioned themselves together," 
etc. This passage reminds of Shakespeare's line, 

" Such harmony is in immortal souls." — " Mer. of Yen." V. i. 

Of music as a formative power, even able to aid in evolving cosmos 
from chaos, Mrs. Osgood sings : — 

The Father spake : in grand reverberations 
Slow rolled through space the mighty music tide, 
While, to its low majestic modulations. 
The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside." 

See the Pythagorean and Platonic notions as to the power of music. 

7. "Venus rose," etc. Near Cythera (now Cerigo). See note on 
"Cyprian queen," in Sprague's " Masterpieces in Eng. Literature," 
p. 72 ; also " Class. Diet." 

8. "drops of song." Felicitous phrase ? Illustrate. 
Page 70. 1. " Willie brew'd." See p. 170. 

2. " Mary in Heaven." See pp. 109, 180. 
.3. "Auld Lang Syne." See p. 171. 

4. " Duncan Gray." See p. 172. 

5. "Scots wha hae," etc. See pp. 105, 100. 

6. "a tone and words for every mood." True? — Formulate a 
phrase to cover this paragraph. 

7. " Our Fletcher " (Andrew, 1053 ?-1710), " Fletcher of Saltoun," 
author, orator, politician. Was it he who said, " I will lay down my 
life to serve my country, but I will not do a base thing to save it" ? 



NOTES. 127 

— " our." Of us Scotch ? After Carlyle had been a while in London, 
he used to say " we English." 

8. "aphorism." Gr. airS, apo, irom ; 6pf fetv, ftonscm, to separate 
(by boundary) ; d<popii;eiv, aphorizein, to bound ; d(popiiXfx6s, aphoris- 
mos, aphorism, something (in speech) marked off (by boundaries) ; 
a definition ; a pithy sentence ? Differentiate axiom, maxiryi, aj)ho- 
rism, adage. 

9. In a letter to the Marquis of Montrose, Fletcher wrote : "I knew 
a very wise man that believed that, if a man were permitted to make 
all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a 
nation." 

10. " is the name and voice." Better, are " the name and voice " ? 
or, better, is "the name, the voice"? Reconstruct the sentence. 

— Sum up this paragrapii. 

Page 71. 1. "Grays." Thomas Gray (1716-1771) wrote "Elegy 
in a Country Churchyard," " The Bard," "The Progress of Poesy," 
etc. 

2. "Glovers." Richard Glover (1712-1785), highly praised by 
Burke in his speech on "Conciliation with America," wrote, among 
other works, an epic entitled "Leonidas" ; a tragedy, " Boadicea," 
etc. 

3. "in vacuo " = in vacant space. Yet Gray's "Bard" and 
" Progress of Poesy " ought to be of national interest to all English- 
men, and Glover's forgotten "Leonidas" and "Hosier's Ghost" were 
specially calculated to arouse patriotism. 

4. "Goldsmith" (Oliver, 1728-1774) in "The Traveller," "The 
Deserted "Village," " She Stoops to Conquer," " The Haunch of Veni- 
.son," " The Hermit," etc., breaks loose from the artificiality, pedantry, 
and classical affectation of Pope and Addison, and introduces natural- 
ness, simplicity, "the still sad music of humanity." Illustrate by 
quotation. 

5. "Johnson." Already mentioned. 

6. "his Rambler" (semiweekly, 1750-1752) is mo.stly made up 
of essays after the manner of Addison's " Spectator." 

7. " his Rasselas " (1759), though struck out at a heat, is a pleasing 
romance of the Orient. Its stately, classic diction is evident in the 
first sentence : " Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of 
fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope ; who expect 
that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficien- 
cies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the 
history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." — Title for this paragraph ? 



128 NOTES. 

8. "Geneva." Influence there of Italian, French, and German 
literatures ? 

9. "Scotland became British," partly in 1603, when the crowns 
were united under James I., and completely in the reign of Anne 
(1702-1714), when Scotch representation in Parliament began. 

10 and 11. "Addison" (Jo-seph, 1672-1719) and Steele (Richard, 
1070-1729) published jointly their delightful essays tlirice a week in 
the "Tatler" (1709-1710) and daily in the "Spectator" (1711-1712). 
More of these ? 

12. "Boston" (not John but Thomas, 1676-1732) was a Calvinist 
clergyman. His "Human Nature in its Fourfold State" loomed 
threateningly in 1720. Chambers's " Cyclopedia of Eng. Literature." 

10. "schisms." Or. <rxtj'w, schizo, I cleave asunder; o-x'V/xa, 
schisma, a split. — "schisms in . . . Church," 18th century contro- 
versies ? 

14. "schisms in our Body Politic." Between the partisans of 
James II. (Lat. Jacobus, Stuart, 1685) and those of William III. 
(Orange, 1688) and George I. (Hanover, 1714) ? 

15. "Jacobite," adhering to James (Jacobus) II, 

16. " Karnes " (Henry Home, 1696-1782), a Scottish judge, author 
of " Elements of Criticism," a learned and long a standard work. 

17. "Hume" (David, 1711-1770), historian, metaphysician, skep- 
tic, of graceful style, acute intellect, prejudiced judgment. 

18. "Robertson" (William, 1721-1793), a popular preacher and 
painstaking historian, who wrote histories of "Scotland" (1759), of 
"Charles V." (1769), and of "America" (1777). 

19. "Smith" (Adam, 1723-1790) published (1759) "Theory of 
Moral Sentiments," and in 1776, his great work, "The Wealth of 
Nations." Was he the first man to originate a "complete system 
of political economy" ? 

Page 72. 1. "Racine" (Jean, 16.39-1699), less grand but more 
pathetic in his tragedies than Corneille (1600-1684), is placed by 
Hallam (Henry, 1777-18-30) "next to Shakespeare among all the 
moderns, and second only to Vergil among all poets " ! 

2. "Voltaire" (Francois M. A., 1694-1778), characterized by 
Goethe as "the greatest literary man of all time," was dramatist, 
poet, historian, philosopher, critic ; a most brilliant talker ; a bitter 
scoffer at revealed religion, yet a deist. More about him ? 

3. " Batteux " (Charles, 171.3-1780), professor of philosophy in the 
College of France, wrote " Treatise on the Fine Arts." 

4. "Boileau" (Nicliola.s, 1606-1711), "the Horace of France," 



NOTES. 129 

poet, satirist, critic, and literary autocrat, wrote "Art of Poetry" 
after the Horatian manner. 

5. " Montesquieu " (Charles de Secondet, Baron, 1689-1755) wrote 
" Persian Letters," satirizing dogmatism ; but his great work was 
" The Spirit of Laws," a noble contribution to the philosophy of his- 
tory and the science of government. 

6. " Mably " (Gabriel Bonnot'de Mably, Abbe, 1709-1785) wrote, 
among other works, "Observations on the Government of the United 
States." 

7. " Quesnay " (Frangois, 1694-1744), physician, wrote on politi- 
cal economy, stoutly advocating the laissez faire (let alone) doctrine. 

8. " La F16che," a manufacturing town on a branch of the Loire, 
about one hundred miles southwest of Paris. Here Hume wrote most 
of his " Treatise on Human Nature " (1748). 

9. "patriotism founded on something better than prejudice." Is 
patriotism enlarged selfishness ? 

10. "threshing-floor for logic," etc. How much of justice in this 
statement ? Why do the Scotch excel in logic and metaphysics ? 
— Define the contents of this, paragraph. 

Page 73. 1. "Scott" (AYalter, 1771-1832), poet, biographer, 
prince of novelists, the " Wizard of the North," "the most volumi- 
nous writer of his age." More of him ? 

2. " Propaganda" (Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, society for 
propagating the faith), a college at Rome instituted by Pope Urban 
Vni. (1623-1644) for educating priests for missionary work. Lat. 
pro, forward, and pag-es, a fastening, fr. j)ak, to fasten ; jiropago, a 
layer, slip, cutting. Skeat. 

3. "a tide of Scottish prejudice. " " The first two books I ever read 
in private, and wiiich gave me more pleasure than any two books I 
ever read since, were the 'Life of Hannibal,' and the 'History of 
Sir William Wallace' (about 1270-1305?). Hannibal gave my 
young ideas such a turn that I used to strut in raptures up and down 
after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to 
be a soldier ; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice 
into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life 
shut in eternal rest." " Autobiographical Letter to Dr. Moore," Aug. 
2, 1787. 

4. "happy valley." Dr. Johnson's "Rasselas." The delightful 
home of the prince was called "the happy valley." — "I mind." I 
recall, heed. The quotation is from Burns's "Epistle to the Guid- 
wife of Wauchope House." 



130 NOTES. 

Page 74. 1. " Thistle." Emblem of Scotland,' as the flevr de lis 
is of France. Other flowers as national symbols ? 

2. "bear." A. S. ftere, barley. 

3. "spared," etc. Surely he was all soul. — Note purport of this 
paragraph. 

4. "The life he willed and was fated to lead." What does Carlyle 
mean by " fated " ? Better Whitticr's 

"Ne'er mistook my will for fate, 
Pain of sin for heavenly hate." 

— "Andrew Rykman's Prayer." 

5. " intercalated." Lat. inter, between ; calare, (ir. naXt'iv, kalrin, 
to call, proclaim. — Predominant thought in this paragraph. 

C. " tlicre is but one era in the life of Burns." True ? 

Page 75. 1. "still in youth." At once his strength and weak- 
ness '.' — " Genius," says Coleridge, " is carrying the feelings of youth 
into the powers of manhood." 

" Who is the happy warrior ? Who is he 
That every man in arms slioukl wish to be ? 
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought 
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought 
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought." 

— Wordsworth. 

2. " never attains to any clearness regarding himself." Is Carlyle 
right in this ? In his letter to Dr. Moore (1787), Burns says : " It ever 
was my oi)inion that the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and 
religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily guilty, are 
owing to their ignorance of them.selves. To know my.self had been 
all along my constant study. I weighed myself alone ; balanced my- 
self with others ; and watched every means of information to see how 
much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet ; I studied assiduously 
Nature's design in my formation," etc. 

3. "the world still appears to him, as tp the young, in borrowed 
colors." Some have quoted, as a parallel passage, Wordsworth's Ode 
on " Intimations of Immortality," stanza v., beginning, " Our birth is 
but a sleep and a forgetting. " Is there a genuine similarity of thought? 

Page 76. 1. "the only true happiness," etc. This thought often 
recurs in Carlyle. Thus, in his " Stump Orator" : " Appeal by silent 
work, by silent suffering if there be no work, to the gods, who have 
nobler than seats in the Cabinet for thee. . . . There where thou art. 



NOTES. 131 

work, work ; whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with the 
hand of a man, not of a phantasm ; be that tiiy unnoticed blessedness 
and exceeding great reward ! " And yet Milton sublimely sings, — 

" They also serve who only stand and wait ! " 

Include the meaning of this paragraph in a phrase. 

2. "empyrean." Gr. iv, en, in; irOp, ptir, or pyr, fire; i/xniipios, 
empyrios, in fire. The highest heaven was supposed to be pervaded 
by pure elemental fire. The word "ether," in its etymology (aWeiv, 
aithein, to shine, glow, burn), points to a similar notion. So the poet's 

" Go wing thy flight from star to star, 
From world to luminous world, as far 
As the universe spreads her flaming wall." 

3. "a little before his end," etc. Does he mean Byron's heroic 
efforts for Grecian independence? — Sum up in a few words this 
paragraph. 

4. "His father," etc. Burns says of him, "I have met few who 
understood men, their manners, and their ways equal to him ; bu' 
stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibiliiy 
are disqualifying circumstances : consequently, I was born a very pour 
man's son." — Letter to Dr. Moore. 

Page 77. 1. "The crossing of a brook." Allusion to Caesar's 
decisive act in crossing the Rubicon, 49 n.c, the beginning of active 
hostilities. See the Roman histories and the biogi'aphies. ^ 

2. " changed the whole course of British literature." Probable? 

3. "Let us worship God." See the stanzas quoted from "The 
Cotter's Saturday Night," post. 

4. "priest-like father," etc. 

"From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs." 

— Fit words to name the contents of this paragraph ? The quotation 
at the end is from Wordsworth's " Leech Gatherer." 

Page 78. 1. "the gayest, brightest," etc. What evidence of 
this? (But see Lockhart, Chap. I.) Of his boyhood. Burns wrote, 
" I was by no means a favorite with anybody." 

2. "a kind of mud-bath," etc. Contrast with this Milton's sub- 
lime appeal, "I call the Deity to witness that in all those places in 
which vice meets with so little discouragement, and is practiced with 
so little shame, I never once deviated from the paths of integrity and 
virtue, and I perpetually reflected that though my conduct might 
escape the notice of men, it could not elude the inspection of God." 



132 NOTES. 

3. "leprous armada." Any allusion to the Spanish fleet of 1588 ? 
Gr. root ap, ar, to join, fit ; ap/xSs, harnios, joining ; Lat. anna, arms, 
weapons, armor; annata (classis), armed (fleet). 

4. " Devil's-service . . . adamant of Fate," etc. In such words 
we may see beginnings of the characteristic peculiarities of Carlyle's 
later style, 'n which we find such words as " Louis-Philippism," 
"long-eared Hearsays," "multitudinous froth-gospels," etc. See 
ante, some of our extracts from Carlyle. 

Page 79. 1. "adamant of Fate, attracting." See in the "Ara- 
bian Nights" the voyage of Sinbad. — Sense of this paragraph ? 

2. " learned much more than was needful," etc. Shall we say, 
then, with Pope, " A little learning is a dangerous thing " ? Is it bet- 
ter than none ? 

Page 80. 1. "passions raging," etc. "My passions, when once 
lightetl up, raged like so many devils till they got vent in rhyme ; and 
then the conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet ! " 
"Autobiographical Letter to Dr. Moore," 1787. 

2. "personal liberty," etc. "1 had been for some days skulking 
from covert to covert under all the terroi's of a jail, as some ill-advised 
people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels." 
" Letter to Dr. Moore," 1787. 

8. "hungry Kuin has him in the wind." In the letter to 
Dr. Moore, he wrote, '" Hungry Ruin had me in the wind." 
Metaphor ? Personification ? The wind wafts the scent to the 
pursuing wolf ? 

4. "The gloomy night is gathering fast." fiee post, for the "Fare- 
well to Ayr," of which Carlyle imperfectly quotes the last four lines. 
He substitutes "Adieu, my native banks" for "Farewell, the bonnie 
banks." Which is the better ? — Label this paragraph. 

6. " Burns's appearance," etc. Compa:re Franklin's at the court 
of Louis XVI. ; Goldsmith's, when he .startled a brilliant company at 
Bennett Langton's, or at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, by beginning an 
anecdote with, " When I lived among the beggars in Axe Lane ; " or 
Paul's appearance at Athens. 

Page 81. 1. "Rienzi" (Niccolo Gabrini, 1313-1354), Roman 
orator and tribune. In 1.347, the Romans, under the spell of his 
eloquence, sought to reestablish liberty. See the histories, the bio- 
graphical dictionaries, and cyclopedias. — Affix a proper descriptive 
word to this paragraph. 

2. "bon-mots" (pron. bon-mo'). Fr. ban, good; mots, words, 
sayings. Is the word properly anglicized ? 



^ NOTES. 133 

3. "worst of all, who was known," etc. Antecedent of whof 
Break this sentence into shorter ones. 

Page 82. 1. "societies which they would have scorned," etc. 
"It was little in Burns's character to submit to nice and scrupulous 
rules, when he knew that, by crossing the street, he could find society 
who would applaud him the more, the more heroically all such rules 
were disregarded." (Lockhart). Shall we call such freedom "heroic"? 
— Characterize this paragraph. 

2. " Walker's," etc. See our quotation from Walker. 

3. "Virgilium vidi tantum" = I have at least seen Virgil [Far- 
rand] ? I have almost seen Virgil [Abernethy] ? I have at least a 
glimpse of Virgil to boast of [Boynton] ? I merely saio Virgil (so 
much, nothing more) ? Literally, Virgil I saw, so much [if no more] ? 
From the "Tristia," IV. 10, line 51, of Ovid. (Publius OvidiusNaso, 
43 B.C.-17 A.D.) See "Class. Diet." 

^ 4. "Ferguson" (Adam, 1723-1816), Professor of Philosophy at 
Edinburgh. 

5. "Bunbury's." " Diet. Nat. Blog." 
Page 83. 1. " Minden," in Prussia. 

2. "Langhorne" (John, 1735-1779), English poet, translator of 
Plutarch's "Lives." Chambers's "Cyclop. Eng. Lit." Scott seems 
to have substituted " mother wept " for " parent mourned. " Well? 
Give a word or phrase as an exponent of this paragraph. 

3. " Nasmyth's picture," painted about the time Scott saw Burns. 
See our copy of it. Burns's age then ? 

4. " more massive." Likely? 

5. "douce gudemau." Lat. dtilcis, Fr. doux, sweet; in Scotland, 
douce = sober, sedate, modest, prudent ; gudeman is goodman, master 
of a house or family, husband. Mark xiv. 14. 

6. " literally glowed." Explanation ? — Name the contents of this 
paragraph. 

Page 84. 1. "Burns's acquaintance," etc. Did Scott judge 
correctly ? 

2. " National predilection." How could that affect his estimate of 
himself ? — What of this paragraph ? 

3. "Laird." A.S. hldf, bread, loaf; weardian, to look after, 
ward ; hlafweard, hldford; Old Eng. laverd; Mid. Eng. louerd, lord. 

4. " in malam partem " = in bad part ; with intent to disparage ; 
ably ; maliciously ; with displeasure ? Toward whom ? 

5. " pathetic or humorous." Why ? — A descriptive word or two 
for this paragraph. 



134 NOTES. 

Page 85. 1. "This winter did him great and lasting injury." 

— Condense into half the space what Carlyle says in this paragraph. 

2. "Blacklock." (Thomas Blacklock, D.l)., blinded in infancy 
by smallpox.) " I had taken the last farewell of my few friends; 
my chest was on the road to Greenock ; I had composed the last 
song I should ever measure in Caledonia, — 'TIic gloomy night is 
gathering fast,' — when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine 
overthrew all my schemes by opening new prospects to my poetic 
ambition. The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose applause 
I had not dared to hope. His opinion, that I would meet with 
encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, tired me so much 
that away I posted for that city without a single acquaintance, or a 
single letter of introduction." "Letter to Dr. Moore." — Of Black- 
lock, Dr. Sam. Johnson wrote to ]\Irs. Thi-ale : " This morning I saw at 
breakfast Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet ... I looked upon him with 
reverence." 

3. "modica." Lat. modus, measure; due or proper quantity; 
mndicns, moderately ; modicum, a small quantity, a measured supijly. 

— Keduce this paragraph to its "lowest [verbal] terms" ! 

Page 86. 1. "Excise and Farm scheme." An exci.se was an 
inland duty or impost on tobacco, .spirits, etc. ; also on licenses to 
trade. Compare the English system with our internal revenue sys- 
tem. Lat. ex, out, off ; caedere, to cut ; exciswn, cut out, or cut off. 
The special function of a ganger was to ascertain the capacity, or con- 
tents, of casks. Burns's salary is said to have been £70 a year. The 
farm was at Ellisland, some five miles from Dumfries. See map. 

2. "lie at the pool," etc. Repeat the story of Bethesda, John 
v. 1-17. 

3. "Patronage." Burns loathed the thought of dedicating his 

poems to some patron in order to get assistance. He glories in what 

he calls "independence." He begins his "Cotter's Saturday Night" 

thus : — 

" I\Iy loved, my honored, much respected friend, 

No mercenary bard his homage pays ; 

With honest pride I scorn each selfish end ; 

My dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise." 

4. " preferred self-help," etc. Did he carry these sentiments too 
far? 

Page 87. 1. " owed no man anything." See Romans xiii. 8. 
Nine days before his death he wrote as follows, from Brow on the 
Solway Firth, to his cousin James Burness : " When you offered me 



NOTES. 135 

money assistance, little did I think I should want it so soon. A rascal 
of a haberdasher to whom I owe a considerable bill, taking it into his 
head that I am dying, has commenced a process against me, and will 
infallibly put my emaciated body into jail. . . . save me from the 
horrors of a jail ! " — Characterize, by a word, the spirit of this para- 
graph. 

2. "The woman," etc. Jean Armour, to whom he had already 
been privately marrie.d, and whom he now wedded by a public cere- 
mony complying with all the forms of law. See the song, " The Win- 
some Wee Thing," post. 

3. " Picturesque tourists." In a footnote Carlyle says as follows : 
" There is one little sketch by certain ' English gentlemen ' of this class, 
which, though adopted in Currie's Narrative, and since then repeated 
in most others, we have all along felt an invincible disposition to 
regard as imaginary : ' On a rock that projected into the stream, they 
saw a man employed in angling, of singular appearance. He had 
a cap made of fox-skin on his head, a loose greatcoat fixed round him 
by a belt, from which depended an enormous Highland broad-sword. 
It was Burns.' Now, we rather think, it was not Burns. For, to say 
nothing of the fox-skin cap, the loose and quite Hibernian watchcoat 
with the belt, what are we to make of this ' enormous Higliland broad- 
sword ' depending from him ? More especially, as there is no word 
of parish constables on the outlook to see whether, as Dennis phrases 
it, he had an eye to his own midriff or that of the public ! Burns, 
of all men, had the least need, and the least tendency, to seek for 
distinction, either in his own eyes, or those of others, by such poor 
mummeries." 

4. "Maecenases." Maecenas (70 ?-8 b.c), a Roman knight, rich, 
cultured, and generous, who took Horace and Vergil under his pat- 
ronage, and whose name has become a synonym for liberal patron 
of literary talent. 

Page 88. 1. "These men . . . were proximately the means of 
his ruin." See the conclusion of Carlyle's "The Hero as Man of 
Letters," as quoted in this book, beginning, "My last remark is," etc. 
— This paragraph = what ? 

2, 3, 4. "Loadstar . . . sea . . . Meteors ..." etc. Felicitous 
metaphors ? See Carlyle's great " Histoiy of the French Revolution" ; 
Fisher's admirable summary in his " Outlines of Univ. Hist.," pp. 499- 
514. "Loadstar" is fr. A.S. lad, a way, and star ; lit. way-star, i.e. 
the star that shows the way. Skeat. 

5. "collision," etc. As Exciseman he captured an armed smug- 



136 NOTES. 

gliiig brig. Four of its small cannon he dispatched to the French Con- 
vention. They were started en route at Dover, and Mr. Corbeck, 
one of the Superiors (so Burns tells us, in his letter to Mr. Erskine,' 
recorded in his memorandum book, April 13, 1793), informed him 
[me] that "mj' business was to act, and not to think, and that, what- 
ever might be men or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient." 
Page 89. 1. " cast the first stone. " John viii. 7. 

2. " Jacobin." The club of Jacobins (so called from their place of 
meeting, the monasteiy of St. Jaqiies) aimed at the overthrow of the 
old political institutions of France. For more of Burns's political 
sentiments, see "Life of Burns" by Lockhart, Blackie, Shairp, 
Chambers, Cunningham, etc. 

3. "one act guilty of all." Scripture allusion ? — Name subject of 
this paragraph. 

Page 90. 1. "Baillie's." "Diet. Xat. Biog." 

2. "lung," hang. 

3. "dowie," sad. 

4. "-bing," pile, heap of grain, etc. 
6. "sud," should. 

6. "linking it," tripping. 

7. Entertained him very agreeably " with a bowl of his usual pota- 
tion," says Lockhart, q.v. This anecdote illustrates what? 

8. " Where bitter indignation can no longer lacerate his heart." 
So Carlyle renders Dean Swift's epitapli, Ubi saeva indignatio cor 
uJterius lacerare nequit, composed by Swift himself (Jonathan Swift, 
1G67-1745). More of Swift ! This paragraph = ? 

Page 91. 1. "Not as a hired soldier," etc. He volunteered as 
a soldier at Dumfries, and composed (in April, 1795) the popular song, 
"The Dumfries Yohmteers," beginning : — 

" Does haughty Gaul invasion threat ? 
Then let the loons beware, Sir, 
There's wooden walls upon our seas, 
And volunteers on shore, Sir." 
It ends : — 

" Who will not sing ' God save the King' 

Shall hang as high's the steeple ; 

But while we sing ' God save the King,' 

We'll ne'er forget the people ! " 

2. "high-mindedne.ss," etc. Refusing a draft of £5, which his 
editor had sent him for some of his effusions. Burns writes, as if 



NOTES. 137 

his brain were unduly affected : " I swear by that honor which crowns 
tlie upright statue of Robert Burns's integrity, on the least motion of 
it [payment], I will indignantly spurn the by-past transaction, and 
from that moment commence to be an entire stranger to you. Burns's 
character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind will, 
I trust, long outlive any of his wants which the cold unfeeling ore 
can supply." Is Carlyle quite correct in his estimate of this attitude 
of Burns ? — Substance, in fewest possible words, of this paragraph ? 

3. "Three gates of deliverance," etc. Was there not a, fourth ; 
viz. reformation, and sober, silent, continuous work ? See note, 
ante, on "The only true happiness," p. 130. 

Page 92. 1. " physical causes," etc. Was it then too late ? On 
the 5th of December, 1793, he begins a letter thus : " Heated as I was 
with wine yesternight." Another letter, late in 1794, begins : " I was, I 
know, drunk last night, but am sober this morning." On Feb. 7, 
1795, he writes, from Carlyle's birthplace, Ecclefechan, as follows : 
"I have been in a dilemma, either to get drunk to forget these 
miseries, or to hang myself to get rid of them ... I of two evils 
have chosen the least, and am very drunk ! " 

2. "So the milder third gate was opened," etc. Note the deep 
pathos of this conclusion, which Wickes calls a "beautiful epitaph." 
Compare with it the passage we have quoted from "Sartor Resartus," 
beginning, " O ye loved ones that already sleep in the noiseless Bed 
of Rest," etc. — True "inwardness" of this paragraph in shortest 
phrase. 

3. " counsel, true affection, and friendly ministrations," etc. Is 
it not singular that Carlyle does not recognize the disease, sure to 
prove fatal to this exquisitely sensitive poet — intemperance ? 

4. " mortifying truth," etc. Mortifying indeed ; but is it truth? 
Page 93. 1. " Friendship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no 

longer exists," etc. Is Carlyle not utterly mistaken? Is this the 
outcome of eighteen centuries of Christianity ? 

2. "twice cursed." " Merchant of Ven.," IV. i. 177, Sprague's. 

3. "sentiment of Pride . . . the basis of our whole social 
morality." Is it possible that this is true ? What of the golden 
rule ? See note on "a noble pride " near the beginning of the essay. 
The reader will recall Sam. Johnson's spiteful rejection of proffered 
charity while a student. With such a sentiment compare Carlyle's, 
uttered in 1824 : "If it were but a crust of bread and a cup of water 
that Heaven has given thee, rejoice that thou hast none but Heaven 
to thank for it. A man that is not standing on his own feet soon 



138 NOTES. 

ceases to be a man at all." By contrast, note what a great poet 
has said : — 

" God never never made an independent man." 

Observe, too, that Johnson himself, who in 1755 had defined "Pen- 
sioner" "a slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master," 
accepted, in 1762, a pension of £800 a year ! What was the result, at 
last, to Burns and his family, of his " independence" ? See the song 
' ' For a' That and a' That." — In a word or two, gist of paragraph ? 

3. " softest heart then breathing." Correct metaphor ? 

Page 94. 1. "as the English did Shakespeare." Bat did they? 
Investigate and report ! 

2. " rhilip II." (1527-1598), king of Spain. 

8. "Cervantes" (Miguel de, 1547-1616) early in the seventeenth 
century published his great classic, " Don Quixote," "to render ab- 
horred of men the false and absurd stories contained in the books of 
chivalry." He had been wounded in the battle of Lepanto (1571), 
was for years held as a slave in Algiers, and was repeatedly imprisoned 
for debt. More of him ? 

4. " grapes of thorns." Matthew vii. 16. 

5. "little Babylons." Daniel, iv. 30. Observe Carlyle's familiar- 
ity with Scripture. 

Page 95. 1. " go and do otherwise." Luke x. 37. 

2. "solemn mandate." Where and when ? 

3. "no Burns ... to assuage." Can a vian be assuaged? — Lat. 
ad, Old Fr. prefix a- ; suavis, sweet. Properly assuage is, in all but 
the prefix, a doublet of sweeten. Skeat. 

4. "fardels." LowLat./rt?-rf<'?ZH.s,aburden, apack. See Sprague's 
ed. of " Hamlet," III. i. 76, 77. — Essential doctrine of this paragraph ? 

5. "to its Teachers," etc. Why ? 

6. "the poison-chalice." See our edition of Macbeth, I. vii. 11. 

7. "the welcome," etc. Matthew xxiii. .34 ; Acts vii. 52. 

8. "Homer." See quotation already given on Homer's begging 
his bread. 

9. "Socrates" (469-399 B.C.). 

"To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear, 
From heaven descended to the low-roofed house 
Of Socrates. See there his tenement, 
Whom, well inspired the oracle pronounced 
Wisest of men." — Milton's " Paradise Regained," IV. 

See " Class. Diet." for more of Socrates. 



NOTES. 139 

10. " Apostles." All martyred but John ? 

11. "Roger Bacon"" (1219-1291), a Franciscan friar, "The Ad- 
mirable Doctor," a man of vast learning, acuteness, and inventive 
genius. His deep studies in natural science and his discoveries were 
believed to antagonize religion, and he is said to have been imprisoned 
some ten years. See in Green's "Short History" a summary of the 
story of this strange, wonderful man. 

12. "Galileo" (Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642), the illustrious astron- 
omer, inventor, natural philosopher ; said to have invented the tele- 
scope, discovered the moons of Jupiter and the crescent phases of 
Venus, and to have advocated so boldly the Copernican theory of the 
solar system, that he was imprisoned and was compelled by the 
Roman Inquisition to renounce his views. "Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica," etc. 

13. "Tasso" (Torquato, 1544-1595), mysteriously imprisoned 
seven years and two months by Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, Italy. See 
Wiffen's biography prefixed to his elegant translation of Tasso's great 
epic, "Jerusalem Delivered." 

14. "Camoens" (Luis, 1524-1579), the famous Portuguese poet, 
author of the "Lusiad," a national epic glorifying events in his 
country's history, especially the discovery by Vasco da Gama (in 
1498) of the passage to India. 

15. "persecuted," etc. Matt. v. 12; Acts vii. 52. Instances? 
— Sum up this paragraph under an appropriate title. 

Page 96. 1. "The sternest sum-total," etc. If true, in what 
sense ? 

2. "triumphed over Death." Ephes. iv. 8 ; 1 Cor. xv. 54-57, 
etc. Illustrations. 

' ' The spirit shall return to Him 
That gave its heavenly spark ; 
Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim 

When thou thyself art dark ! 
No ! it shall live again, and shine 
In bliss unknown to beams of thine. 

By Him recalled to breath 
Who captive led captivity. 
Who robbed the grave of Victory, 
And took the sting from Death ! " 

— Campbell's "The Last Man." 

Name the moral taught by this paragraph. 



140 NOTES. 

Page 97. 1. " Restaurateur" (Lat. res^rtJfrare, fr. j-e, again, and 
an unused staurare, to establish, make firm ; Fr. restaurer, to restore, 
refresh), a restorator, keeper of a restaurant. What of this meta- 
phor? "It is a damnable heresy," says Carlyle ("Note Book," 
Dec. 3, 1826), "to maintain either expressly or implicitly that the 
ultimate object of poetry is sensation. That of cookery is such, but 
not that of poetry. Sir Walter Scott is the great intellectual restau- 
rateur of Europe. What are his novels — any one of them ? Are we 
wiser, better, holier, stronger ? No. We have been amused." 

2. "The influences . . . subordinate," etc. Reconstruct this 
sentence. 

3. " reconcile these two," etc. What ? — Give this paragraph a 
distinctive title. 

4. "a far sorer battle . . . than his was." Better omit was ? 

5. "Locke" (John, 1632-1704), English philosopher, theologian, 
political writer. Involved in the fortunes of his friend, the Lord 
Chancellor, Earl of Shaftesbury, who was accused of high treason 
(1682), Locke fled to Holland (1684). lie returned to England in 
the fleet that convoyed the Princess of Orange (1689). More of 
Locke ? Was he "banished " ? 

6,7. "Milton ... in darkness," etc. "A mightier spirit, un- 
subdued by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditated, 
undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around, a song so 
sublime and so holy that it would not have n^isbecome the lips of 
those ethereal virtues, whom he saw with that inner eye which no 
calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their 
crowns of amaranth and gold." Macaulay. 
" His immortal song." 

"Unchanged 
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days. 
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues, 
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round 
And solitude ; yet not alone while thou 
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn 
Purples the east. Still govern thou my song, 
Urania, and fit audience find, though few." 

— " Paradise Lost," VII. 24-31. 
More in regard to Milton ? 

Page 98. 1. "Araucana." An epic poem in thirty-seven cantos, 
written in the wilderness where he fought, by the Spanish poet, 
Alonzo de Ercilla y Zunica (1533-1595). Its subject was the Spanish 



NOTES. 141 

expedition against Arauco, Chili. — A brief designation of the contents 
of this paragraph ? • 

2. " a high, heroic idea," etc. See especially Milton's "Apology 
for Smectymnuus," and Book ii. of his " Reason of Church Govern- 
ment." 

3. "heavenly Wisdom." "Par. Lost," VII. 9-11. 

4. "golden-calf." Exodus xxxii. 3, 4; Psalms cvi. 19, 20. 

5. "reasonable service." Romans xii. 1. Is the Goodness prop- 
erly designated as service? Define the essence of this paragraph. 

G. "enjoyment . . . the only thing he longs and strives for." 
Weigh the statement ! Is it not too sweeping ? 

Page 99. 1. " He has no Religion." A correct diagnosis ? 

2. "Rabelais" (FranQois, 1495-1553), the "comic Homer," a 
French physician, philosopher, humorist ; satirical and brilliant, 
but profane and nasty. He is reported to have said, when dying, 
"I am now about to take a leap in the dark: ... let down the 
curtain ; the farce is done ! " — Descriptive word for this paragraph ? 

3. " serene ethei'." See on emjryrean, ante. 

Page 100. 1. "Jean Paul" = Johann Paul Friedrich Richter 
(1763-1825). The philosophy, humor, wit, and wisdom of this mystical 
German author were first made known to the English public by one 
of Carlyle's essays in 1827. More about him ? — What word about this 
paragraph ? 

2. " brightening the thick smoke of intoxication with fire lent him 
from heaven." Shall we not rather fear it was too often a darkening 
of the fire with the thick smoke of intoxication ? 

3. "amuck" (Malay aniog, furious), in a frenzied and reckless 
manner. To run amuck is to assail violently and indiscriminately. 
Is Carlyle's wonder reasonable ? — Distinctive phrase for this para- 
graph ? 

4. 5. "Byron . . . Burns." Observe the characterizations, con- 
trasts, likenesses, failures. Is Carlyle correct ? 

6. "the highest worldly honors," etc. But see Taine's "Eng. 
Lit." IV. ii. 271 et seq., Van Laun's Translation. 

Page 101. 1. "God and Mammon." Luke xvi. 13. Other 
Scriptures to same effect ? 

Page 102. 1. "words of Milton." In his "Apology for Smec- 
tymnuus " (1642) he writes : " I was confirmed in this opinion, that he 
who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in 
laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem ; that is, a composi- 
tion and pattern of the best and most honourable things, not presum- 



142 NOTES. 

ing to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities unless he have 
in himself •the experience and the practice of all that which is praise- 
worthy." In the preface of Book ii. of his "Reason of Church Gov- 
ernment," Milton tells of the painstaking efforts and strict discipline 
by which he had prepared himself to be a true poet. See the magnifi- 
cent passage. See, too, the splendid results of all that consecration 
of genius. 

2. " Courser of the Sun," etc. From his palace in the far east, the 
sun-god Helius, sometimes identified with Hyperion or Apollo, every 
morning ascends the sky in a chariot drawn by four horses ! See 
Guido's "Aurora." On reading such characteristic passages as this, 
one is tempted to wish that Carlyle had chosen poetry rather than 
prose for the vehicle of his thoughts. — Suggest a proper title for this 
paragraph. 

Page 103. 1. " Plebiscita." Gr. ir\rjeos, plethos ; L&t. i)lebs, 
plebis, the mass, the people, the crowd, the commons ; sci7-e, to know ; 
sciscere, to accept, approve, vote for ; scitii)n, an ordinance or decree 
of the people (not of the Senate). 

2. "hippodrome." Gr. iVTror, /u;i/)os, horse ; 5p6/xos, dromos, ra,ce, 
running. 

3. " gin horse." Lat. ingenium ; Fr. engin, skill,»machine, engine. 
See Sprague's ed. of " Macbeth," IV. ii. 35. 

4. " diameter of the gin horse." Of lohat ? So that of the planet 
= what ? 

5. "the same ratio," etc. Apply these analogies in terms as little 
figurative as possible, so as to illustrate the point which Carlyle urges 
in this paragraph. 

6. "Swifts." Read in "Taine," II. iii. 116-123, and in " Morley 
and Tyler," 513-517, the sad story of the brilliant author of "Gulli- 
ver's Travels." See note, ante. 

7. "Rousseau" (Jean Jacques, 1712-1778), philosopher, novelist, 
would-be-reformer, sentimental deist ; a man to be admired, pitied, 
loathed, as his " Confessions" shows. 

8. " Ramsgate." A popular seaside resort in Kent, about twenty- 
five miles north-northeast of Dover. 

9. "Isle of Dogs." A peninsula of the Thames, where the king's 
dogs were once kept. It is within the limits of London, and now 
partly occupied by the "West India docks." —Terse expression for 
this paragraph ? 

10. "enshrined in all hearts," etc. Had Carlyle in mind Milton's 
epitaph on Shakespeare ? It closes with these words : — 



NOTES. 143 

" Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving, 
Dost make us marble with too much conceiviilfe, 
And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie 
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die ! " 

Page 104. 1. "pearl-fishers." Metaphor? 

2. "Valclusa." The valley, village, and fountain of Vaucluse, 
near Avignon, in the south-east of France, were favorite haunts 
of the elegant Italian poet, of whom Chaucer in his prologue to the 
" Clerk's Tale of Patient Griselda" so handsomely says : — 

" I will you telle a tale, which that I 
Learned at Padowe of a worthy clerk. 
As proved by his wordes and his work. 
He is now dead and nailed in his chest ; 
I pray to God to give his soul good rest ! 
Fraunces Petrark, the laureate poete, 
Highte this clerk, whose rethorique sweet 
Enlumyned all Itaille of poetrie." 



SOME EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 



Ill the matter of examinations, as a rule, the teacher will do 
wisely to exercise his own judgment rather than to follow that of 
another. There is danger of requiring of pupils too much. If 
the daily class-work has been faithfully performed, the monthly 
or quarterly or annual examination should always be made easy 
and pleasant for the student. Above all, one should make sure 
that he sees and feels that which is best in the author or the master- 
piece. The following are mere suggestions : 

1. What do you know of Carlyle? 

2. What of Burns ? 

3. What are the great divisions of this essay? 

4. AVhat is Carlyle's criticism on previous biographies of Burns? 

5. AVhat is Carlyle's idea of the chief function of a biography? 

6. Does his essay on Burns come up to that ideal? 

7. What was the source of Burns's strength as a man? 

8. What was his weakness as a man ? 

9. What can you say of his poetic genius? 

10. Quote to show his patriotism; his humor; his tenderness; 

his manliness, etc. 

11. In what does he most excel ? 

12. Explain the unusual words in any of the verses quoted by 

Carlyle. 

13. What can you say of Carlyle's personal appearance? of his 

manners ? 

14. What of Burns's looks ? his behavior ? 

15. Name some of Carlyle's greatest works. Describe one of 

them. 

16. Name some of Burns's poems. Describe the one of them you 

like best. Reason for your preference? Quote in illustration. 

17. What was Carlyle's underlying purpose in life? What did he 

do for the world ? 

145 



146 EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. 

18. What did Burns do for literature ? 

19. What part of this essay do you like best? Why? 

20. In what does Carlyle's power as a writer consist? Quote to 

illustrate this essay. 

21. Resemblances between Burns and Carlyle? 

22. Resemblances between Burns and any American poets? 

23. Carlyle at Chelsea. 

24. Burns at Edinburgh. 

25. State the "argument" or course of thouglit in any division or 

subdivision of this essay. 

26. What do you think of Carlyle's criticism of Byron ? 

27. Explain the allusions in the paragraph that mentions Saracens ; 

paragraph that names ISIacpherson ; paragraph that speaks 
of Meteors of French Politics. 

28. Comment on paragraph that suggests three gates of deliver- 

ance. 

29. If moral elevation and inspiration are the chief objects to be 

aimed at in the study of literature, does this essay clearly 
tend to that end? Why? or why not? 

30. Give an analysis of " The Cotter's Saturday Night " ; of the 

song, " Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled." 

31. Moral or lesson taught by Burns's life? 

32. According to Carlyle what are the ingredients that constitute 

heroism ? Is he right in this ? 

33. Carlyle's singular style. (See the quotations from him.) 
84. Carlyle's friendships. 

35. Carlyle's wife ; his home life. 

36. Burns as an exciseman. 

37. Carlyle's estimate of " Tain o' Shanter." 

38. What Burns might have been, had life and health been pro- 

longed till he reached the age of "three-score and ten." 

39. Effect of environment on poetic genius? Contrast Carlyle's 

view with INIacaulay's in the latter's essay on Milton. 

40. Carlyle on moral "mud-baths," or "Devil's service," as a 

preparation for success in life. 

41. Judged by the views and sentiments of Carlyle expressed in 

the Burns essay alone, what kind of man was Carlyle? 



SOME TOPICS FOR ESSAYS 

RELATING TO CARLYLE. 

I call that the best theme, which shows that the boy has read and 
thought for himself ; tliat the uext best, which shows that he has read 
several books, and digested what he has read ; and that the worst, which 
shows that he has followed but one book, and that without reflection. 

— Arnold. 

Carlyle's Parentage. 

His Early Environment. 

His Preparation for the University. 

His Student Life at Edinburgh. 

His Choice of Profession : Teaching. 

Jan,e Welsh and their Marriage. 

Life at Edinburgh, Craigenputtocli, etc. 

Work in German Literature : Criticism. 

Dyspepsia. 

What Jeffrey told Charles Sumner as to the Style in the Essay 
on Burns. 

Home in Chelsea. 

Failures to obtain Positions sought. 

Courses of Lectures delivered. 

Founding of Library. 

Rectorship of Edinburgh University. 

Death of Wife ; of Himself. 

Carlyle as a Man. 

Carlyle as a Philosopher. 

Carlyle as a Sociologist. 

Carlyle as a Historian. 

Carlyle as a Biographer. 

Carlyle as air Essayist. 

His Humor, Pathos, Dramatic Pow^er ; Worship of Force ; Love 
of Truth, of Duty, of Utility. 
. His Personal Appearance and Mannei's. 

147 



148 TOWCS FOR EXAMINATION AND ESSAYS. 

His Biographers and Critics — e.g. Symington, Norton, Hutton, 
Fronde, Bayne, Hunt, Garnett, INIasson, Japp, ^Nlacplierson, Lowell, 
Jeffrey, or Minto, etc.; especially Taiiie, l\. -1:35-470. 

Carlyle and Lord Jeffrey; Edward Irving, John Sterling, John 
Stuart Mill, Sii" Robert Peel, Dr. Chalmers, Goethe, or Emerson, 
etc. 

Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus," " Mirabeau," " Diamond Necklace," 
or any other of his works. 

.1 nif purayraph or Important topic in the Essay on Burns. 

Any one of the magazine articles on Carlyle referred to in 
Poole's " Index." 

See Welsh's " Englisli Masterpiece Course," pp. l!)(i, 191, pub- 
lished by Silver, Burdett ^ Company, Boston, New York, Chicago. 

See the points mentioned under " Some Examination Ques- 
tions." 



TOPICS FOR EXAMINATION AND ESSAYS, 

RELATING TO BURNS. 

[A bare outline, designedly imperfect, of Bnrns's environment and 
career is here presented as a basis, or series of topics, for tlie student's 
investijiation. He is expeetcil to scan it closely; test its correctness; 
reject freely anytliiiig unimportant or not sutliciently autbenticated ; de- 
velop what is imperfectly treated, if wortby of more attention ; add otber 
facts of imjiortance, if any he can find ; make a more lotjical arranf;;enient, 
if practicable; and so, doinf/ his oioi tlilnkin'j, i)repare a better summary 
of facts, or even write out a series of biographical articles or critical 
essays.] 

AjTshire and Ayr. The name Burnes or Burness, how chatiged 
to Burns? William Burnes and Agnes Brown. Agnes's acquaint- 
ance with ballads and legends. William's nobility. Nursery 
gardening. Clay-built cottage. Doon bridge, Alloway. Birth of 
Robert, eldest of seven. Gilbert's arrival. 

Extreme poverty; hard labor; butcher's meat unknown. Mount 
Oliphant. New pecuniary difficulties. School ; proficiency of 
Robert in studies? Instruction by father. Any talent for music? 
Habitual melancholy. Headaches. Bible. " Life of Hannibal " ; 
" Life of Wallace " ; influence of such books ? ^Mason's " Collection 



TOPICS FOR EXA]MINATION AND ESSAYS. 149 

of Prose and Verse." The little library. Robert's book kiiow- 
led<'^e at eleven? "The Vision of Mirza"; Addison's "How are 
thy servants blest," etc. John Murdoch. Jenny Wilson. 

Harvesting with the " bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass " ; first poetry. 
Susceptibility to the influence of female beauty? Father's dis- 
tresses: the factor and the threatening letters. Dancing-school. 
Lochlea, Tarbolton. Books accessible to him? Seven pounds per 
annum. Love adventures confided to him. 

Kirkoswald : school, Hugh Rodgers, mensuration, surveying ; 
smugglers, dissipation. " Sent off in a tangent " — how ? Return 
home. Fortnight's French. Reading. Practice in letter-writing. 
" Vive I'amour, et vive la bagatelle." " Winter," his earliest 
printed poem? "Death of Poor Mailie." "John Barleycorn." 
Letter and poem to Miss Alexander. Debating and convivial 
club; Tarbolton. Stirrings of ambition. 

Irvine. Flax-dressing. Misconduct and penance. The New 
Year's fire. Father's misfortunes. Gilbert and Robert at ]\Ioss- 
giel. Works of Thomson, Shenstone, Sterne, ^Mackenzie? Self- 
education ? Jilted ? Father's deatli ; Robert's prayer. 

Mauchline. Ferguson's " Scottish Poems." Farming vmder 
difficulties ; bad seed ; late harvest, etc. Satires. " To a Mouse." 
"To a ^lountain Daisy." Sympathy with all animate and even 
inanimate Nature. "Cotter's Saturday Night." Irreverent in 
appearance, yet deeply religious at heart? Love songs. 

Packing up for Jamaica. Why? Like Goldsmitli ? Publication 
of poems at Kilmarnock ? Result? The Clyde, Greenock. "The 
Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast." "Verses written under Violent 
Grief"? Dr. Blacklock; Rev. Mr. Laurie; Loudoun. 

To Edinburgh on foot. Robinson, Blair, Stewart, Gregory, 
Mackenzie, Tytler, Lord Monboddo and daughter? "Elegy on 
Miss Burnet." "The Caledonian Hunt." Drinking customs; 
influence ? Attempts at lofty epistolary style. Second edition of 
poems. Good society and poor society? Popularity. Tour on 
horseback. jMossgiel. 

Edinburgh again. The Highlands. Burns and Dr. Adair on 
tour? Burns and Mr. Nicoll. "The Humble Petition of Bruar 
Water." Song, " Banks by Castle Gordon," its origin ? Edinburgh 
society ; dissipation ? Receipts for poems ? jNIossgiel. Generosity to 
Gilbert ; to mother. Ellisland. Marriage, Jean Armour. Letters 



150 TOPICS FOR EXAMINATION AND ESSAYS. 

to Mrs. Duiilop — correspondence how begun ? "Tarn o" Shanter " 

— origin, how composed? Convivial habits. Failure at farming 

— why ? Exciseman, gauging, inspecting, licensing — what and 
how? Salary? Occasional poems? 

Auction at Ellisland. Years at Dumfries? French Revolution 
and Burns? Political utterances, and trouble? Why not pro- 
moted. Contributions to Johnson's Museum? "Rock of Inde- 
pendence"? Thompson's " Collection of Original Scottish Airs." 
Tinkering old ballads? Making and breaking resolutions? Down- 
ward career, disappointments. Effect of hard drinking? Indi- 
gestion, palpitation. Illness, October, 1795, to January, 1796. 

Death of daugliter. Lines thereon. Asleep in gutter in mid- 
winter? Rheumatism. Lawsuit against him. Where ai'e his 
admirers? On-coming dai-kness. Distressful requests for loans. 
Sea-bathing at Brow. Convalescence and relapse. Who sliowed 
him kindness? Fever. His words to his fellow-soldier, John 
Gibson, " Pray, don't let the awkward squad fire over me I " 
Death, ^lilitary and civic parade at his funeral? 

Ilis personal appearance ; height ; strength of body ; forehead ; 
size of head; quantity, color, and shape of locks; size, color, and 
looks of his eyes ; complexion, face, features, expression ; voice ? 

His genius; IjTic power, fire; originality; insight; intensity; 
sympathy, love ; command of language ; delineation of character ; 
fertility of imagination; wit; humor; patriotism; manliness; 
sincerity; hatred of shams? Was he capable of prolonged flights 
of imagination? His greatness of soul. 



POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY, 



On turning one down with the Plow in April, 1786. 

(See page J6.) 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, 

Thou's met me in an evil hour ; 

For I maun crush amang the stoure must; dust 

Thy slender stem : 
To spare thee now is past my power, 

Thou bonnie gem. 

Alas ! it's no thy neebor sweet, neighbor 

The bonnie lark, companion meet ! 

Bending thee 'niang t!ie dewy weet! wet, wetness 

Wi' speckled breast. 
When upward-springing, blithe, to greet 

The purpling east. 

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north 
Upon thy early, Iiumble birth; 
Yet cheerfully thoii glinted forth 

Amid the storm. 
Scarce reared above the parent earth 

Thy tender form. 

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield. 

High sheltering woods an^ wa's maun shield, walls 

But thou beneath the random bield shelter 

O' clod, or stane. 
Adorns the histie stibble field dry; stubble 

Unseen, alane. 

151 



152 POEMS or KOBERT BURNS. 

There in thy scanty mantle clad. 
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread, 
Thou lifts thy unassuming head 

In humble guise ; 
But now the share up-tears thy bed, 

And low thou lies. 

Such is the fate of artless maid, 
Sweet floweret of the rural shade! 
By love's simplicity l)etrayed, 

And guileless trust. 
Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid 

Low i' the dust. 

Such is the fate of simple bard, 

On life's rough ocean luckless starred! 

Unskillful he to note the card 

Of prudent lore. 
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard. 

And whelm him o'er! 

Such fate to suffering worth is given, 
AVho long witli wants and woes has striven. 
By human pride or cunning driven 

To misery's brink, 
Till, wrenched of every stay but Heaven, 

He, ruined, sink ! 

Even thou who monrn'st the daisy's fate. 
That fate is tliine — no distant date; 
Stern Ruin's plowshare drives, elate. 

Full on thy bloom. 
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight 

Shall be thy doom ! 



TO A MOUSE. 



153 



TO A MOUSE, 

Om turning her up in her Nest with the Plow, November, 1785. 



(See page 46.) 

Wee, sleekit, cowerin, timorous beastie, 
O, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 

Wi' bickerin brattle ! 
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, 

Wi' murderin pattle ! 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union, 
All' justifie.s that ill opinion 

Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor earth-born companion, 

An' fellow-mortal ! 



sleek, sly 



I tremulous hurry- 
) ing ; scamper 
loath 

I small spade, hand- 
I stick 



I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve ; 
What then ? poor beastie, thou maun live ! 
A daimen-icker in a thrave 

'S a sma' recjuest : 
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, 

And never miss't ! 



sometimes 



I rare ear of corn ; 
'( 24 sheaves 



rest, remainder 



Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin ! 

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin ! 

An' naething, now, to big a new one, build 

O' foggage green ! after-grass 

An' bleak December's winds ensuin, 

Baith snell an' keen ! hiting 



Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, 
An' weary winter comin fast, 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 

Thou thought to dwell. 
Till, crash ! the cruel coulter past 

Out through thy cell. 



154 



POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble 
Has cost thee niony a weary nibble I 
Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble, 

But house nor hakl, 
To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 

An' cranreuch cauld ! 



( without ; abiding- 

) place 

( endure ; drizzle, 

1 drizzling 

hoar-frost 



But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
In proving foresight may be in vain : 
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men 

Gang aft a-gley, 
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain, 

For promised joy. 



not thyself alone 



awry 



Still thou art blest, compared wi' me! 
The present only toucheth thee: 
But, och ! I backward cast my e'e 

On prospects drear ! 
An' forward, though I canna see, 

I guess an' fear ! 



Fi{..M TIIK COTTER'."^ SATrUDAV XIHIIT. 

(The family worship of Kobert'.s father, William Burns, "the saint, the 

father, ami the husband.") 



Ml. 

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' .serious face. 

They 'round tlie ingle form a circle wide; fireplace 

The Sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace. 

The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride ; hall 

His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside. 

His lyart haffets wearing tliin and bare; ^ay temples 

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 

He wales a portion with judicious care ; selects 

And "I^t us worship God! " he says, with solemn 
air. 



THE cotter's SATURDAY NIGHT. 155 



XIII. 



They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; 

They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim : 
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise, 

Or plaintive INIartyrs, worthy of the name; 
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward tiaine, -j " helps^ °' 

The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays. 
Compared with these, Italian trills are tame ; 

The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise ; 

Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise. 



XIV 



The priest-like father reads the sacred page, 

How Abram was the friend of God on high ; 
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 

With Amalek's ungracious progeny ; 
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie 

Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; 
Or Job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry; 

Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire ; 
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. 



XV. 

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme. 

How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed ; 
How he who bore in Heaven the second name, 

Ilrtd not on earth whereon to lay his head : 
How His first followers and servants sped. 

The precepts sage they wrote to many a land : 
How he, who lone in Patmos banished. 

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand ; 
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by 
Heaven's command. 



156 POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



XVI. 



Then kneeling down, to Hkaven's Etkrnal King, 

The Saint, the Father, and the Husband prays : 
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing,"* 

That thus they all shall meet in future days ; 
There ever bask in uncreated rays, 

No more to sigh, or slied the bitter tear, 
Together hymning their Creator's praise, 

In such society, yet still more dear, 
While circling time moves round in an eternal 
sphere. 



XVII. 



Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 

In all the pomp of method and of art. 
When men display to congregations wide, 

Devotion's ev'ry grace except the heart ! 
The Pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert, 

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; 
But haply, in some cottage far apart. 

May hear well pleas'd the language of the soul. 
And in His book of life the inmates poor enroll. 



X\'III. 

Then homeward all take off their several way; 

The youngling cottagers retire to rest: 
The parent pair their secret homage pay. 

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request. 
That He, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest. 

And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, 
Would in the way His wisdom sees the best. 

For them and for their little ones provide; 
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine pre- 
side. 

* From Pope's Windsor Forest. 



THE cotter's SATURDAY NIGHT. 157 



xrx. 

From scenes like these old Scotia's gnindeur springs, 

That makes her loved at home, rever'd abroad : 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 

" An honest man's the noblest work of God ; " * 
And certes, in fair virtue's heav'nly road. 

The cottage leaves the palace far behind. 
What is a lordliug's pomp ? a cumbrous load, 

Disguising oft the wretch of human kind. 
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd ! 



XX. 

O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! 

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent ! 
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil 

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet con- 
tent! 
And, O ! may heaven their simple lives prevent 

From luxury's contagion weak and vile ! 
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, 

A vu'tuous populace may rise the while. 
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd 
isle. 

XXI. 

O Thou who pour'd the patriotic tide 

That streamed through Wallace's undaunted 
heart, 
Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride. 

Or nobly die, the second glorious part, — 
The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art, 

His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward ! 
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert ; 

But still the patriot and the patriot's bard 
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! 

* From Pope's Essay on Man. 



158 



POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



From SCOTCH DRINK. March, 1786. 



(See page 58.) 

When Vulcan gies his bellows breath, 
An' plowmen gather wi' their graith, 
O rare ! to see thee fizz an' freatli 

r the luggit caup ! 
Then Burnewin comes on like death 

At ev'ry chaup. 

Nae mercy, then, for aim or steel ; 
The brawny, bainie' plowman chiel, 
Brings hard owre hip. wi' sturdy wheel, 

The strong fore-hammer. 
Till block an' studdie ring and reel 

Wi' dinsome clamor. 



gives 

tackle, gear 

hiss; froth 
( eared, having- 
I handle^i ; cup 

chop, stroke 



bony ; young fellow 
over 

anvil 



ODE TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. OSWALD. 

(See page 64.) 

■\Vrittcn in anger. He lived to think better of the name. 

Dweller in yon dungeon dark. 
Hangman of creation, mark ! 
Who in widow-weeds appears. 
Laden with unhonored years, 
Noosing with care a bursting purse, 
Baited with many a deadly curse ? 



STROPHE. 

View the wither'd Beldam's face — 

Can thy keen inspection trace 

Aught of Humanity's .sweet melting grace? 

Note that eye I 'tis rheum o'erflows. 

Pity's flood there never rose. 

See these hands, ne'er stretched to save. 

Hands that took, but never gave ! 



TAM O' SHANTER. 159 

Keeper of Mammon's iron chest, 

Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest ! 

She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest ! 

ANTISTROPHE. 

Plunderer of Armies, lift thine eyes — 

(Awhile forbear, ye tort'ring fiends !) ^ 

Seest thou whose step, unwilling hither bends ? 

No fallen angel, hurled from upper skies; 

'Tis thy trusty quondam mate ! 

Doom'd to sliare thy fiery fate, 

She, tardy, hell-ward plies ! 

EPODE. 

And are they of no more avail, 

Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a-year? 

In other worlds can Mammon fail. 

Omnipotent as he is here? 

O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier. 

While down the wretclied vital part is driv'n ! 

The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear, 

Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heaven 1 



TAM O' SHANTER. 

(Edinburgh Edition, 1793. See page 07.) 

"In the inimitable tale of Tarn o' Shanter," says Scott, "Burns has 
left us sulHcient evidence of his ability to combine the hidicrous with 
the awful, and even the liorrible. No poet, with the exception of Shake- 
speare, ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant 
emotions with such rapid transitions." 

When chapman billies leave the street, peddler cronies 

And drouthy neebors neebors meet, thirsty neighbors 
As market-days are wearing late. 

An' folks begin to tak' the gate ; road 

While we sit bousing at the nappy, drinking; strong ale 

An' getting fou and unco happy, | uncommwdy 



160 



POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



"\Ye think iia on tlie lang Scotch miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, an' stiles. 
That lie between us and oiy hame, 
Where sits our sulky sullen dame, 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm. 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

This truth fand honest Tarn o' Shanter, 
As he frae Ayr, ae night did canter, 
Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpasses, 
For honest men and bonny lasses. 

O Tam ! hadst tliou but been sae wise. 
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice! 
She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum, 
A bletherin, lilusterin, drunken blellum ; 
Tliat frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou wast nae sober, 
That ilka melder, wi* the miller. 
Thou sat as lang a.s thou had siller; 
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on, 
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on, 
That at the L — d's house, ev'n on Sunday, 
Thou drank wi' Kirklon J»'an till Monday. 
She j>roph('sied, that late or .soon. 
Thou would be found deej) drown'd in Dooii : 
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk. 
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. 

Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet. 
To think how mony counsels sweet, 
IIow mony lengthened, sage advices, 
The husband frae the wife despises! 

But to our tale : — Ae market night 
Tam had got planted unco right; 
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, 
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely; 
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny, 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony. 



I bops ; narrow 
-V openings in a 
I feueo 



blockhead 
jabbering ; bawler 



t every loud to be 
I grotind 
silver, money 

nag 



wizards ; dark 



makes ; weep 



fireplace 
frotbiiif; new ale 
shoemaker 



TAM O' SHANTEK. 161 

Tarn lo'ed him like a vera brither ; 
They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
The night drave on with sangs and clatter : 
And ay tlie ale was growing better : 
The landlady and Tani grew gracious, 
Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious : 
The souter told his queerest Stories ; 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 
The storm without might rair and rustle, 
Tarn did na mind the storm a whistle. 

Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 
E'en drowned himself amang the nappy ! 
As bees flae hame wi' lades o' treasure. 
The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure : 
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious. 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts forever; 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
Evanishing amid the storm. 

Nae man can tether time nor tide ; 
The hour a]iproaches, Tam maun ride ; 
That hour o' night's black arch the key-stane, 
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; 
And sic a night he taks the road in, such 

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last ; 
The rattling showers rose on the blast ; 
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed; 
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed : 
That night a child might understand. 
The Deil had business on his hand. 



162 



rOEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



_( tripiu'd, clattered, 
( sti-jil suiartl}' 



soinetimeit 



Weel niouutcil on his gray mare Meg, - 
A better never lifted leg, — 
Tarn skelpit on through dub and mire, 
Despising wind, and rain, and fire; 
Whiles holiliiig'fast his gnde blue bonnet; 
Wliiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; huuuiilniLr 
Wiiiles glowering round \vi' prudent cares, looking fearfully 
Lest bogles catch him unawares; t'oblins 

Kirk Alloway was drawing nigh, 
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. owlets, owls 



siuutbered 
stone 

Ame ; stona-beap 

uliove 



Hy this time he was cross the ford. 
Whare in the snaw tiie chapman smoored ; 
And past the birks and meikle stane, 
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane; 
And through the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whart' huMti-rs faiid tiie murdt-rt'd liairn; 
And nt-ar the thorn, aboon the well. 
Whan- M lingo's initlier hanged hersel. 
liefore him Doon pours all his floods; 
The doidjling storm roars through the woods; 
The lightnings flash from ]M>ie to jvole; 
Near and more near the thunders roll : 
When, glimmering through tlie groaning trees, 
Kirk Alloway .seemed in a blee/.e; 

Through ilka bore the beams were glancing; hole in the wall 
And loud resounded mirth ;iiul dancing. 



Inspiring bold John Harleycorn ! 
What dangt-rs thou canst make us .scorn ! 
Wi' tipjienny, we fear nae evil ; 
Wi" usquebae, we'll face the Devil ! 
The swats sae reamed in Tammie's noddle. 
Fair l^lay, he cared na deils a boddlf. 
liut Maggie stood right sair astonished, 
Till, by the heel and hand admonished, 
She ventured forward on the light ; 
And. wow I Tam saw an unco sight I 



two-pence boer 
) wlil.Hkey (i/yi/rt 
I rittr] 

n-othi'ii 

copper 



vow, I vow I 



TAM O SHANTER. 



163 



AVarlocks and witches in a dance ; 

Nae cotillon brent new frae France, 

But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 

Put life and mettle in their heels. 

At winnock-bunker in the east, 

There sat auld Xick, in shape o' beast; 

A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 

To gie them music was his chai'ge : 

He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl. 

Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. 

Coffins stood round like open presses. 

That shawed the dead in their last dresses ; 

And by some devilish cantrip sleight 

Each in his cauld hand held a light, — 

By which heroic Tam was able 

To note upon the haly table, 

A murdei-er's banes in gibbet aims ; 

Twa span-lang wee, unchristened bairns ; 

A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, 

Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 

Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted ; 

Five scimiters, wi' murder crusted ; 

A garter which a babe had strangled ; 

A knife a father's throat had mangled, 

Whom his ain son o' life bereft. 

The gray hairs yet stack to the heft ; 

Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu'. 

Which even to name would be unlawfu'. 



i bright, "brand 

) new " 

dances of couples 



window-seat 



shaggy dog 



made, forced ; to 
.■ihrii'k 

tremble, vibrato 



magic 



As Tammie glowered, amazed and curious. 
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : 
The piper loud and louder blew : 
The dancers quick and <iuicker flew; 
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit, linked 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, stout old woman 

And coost her duddies to the w'ark, cast; rags 

And linket at it in her sark ! tripped along ; shirt 



164 



POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



But here my Muse her wing maun cour; 
Sic flights are far beyond her power ; 
To sing how Nannie lap and tlang, 
(A souple jade she was and Strang.) 
And how Tam stood like ane bewitched, 
And thought his very een enriched; 
Even Satan glowered, and tidged fu' fain, 
And hotched and blew wi' might and main: 
Till first ae caper, syne anither, 
Tam tint his reason a' thegither. 
And roars out, " Weel done. Cutty Sark ! " 
And in an instant all was dark ; 
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied. 
When out the hellish legion sallied. 



J sUred ; fidpeted ; 
( oviTJoyed 

moved excitedly 

then 

lost 

short 



As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke. 
When plundering herds assail their byke; 
As oj^en pussie's mortal foes. 
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ; 
As eager runs the market-crowd, 
When "Catch the thief ! " resounds aloud ; 
So Maggit» runs, the witches follow, 
Wi' inoiiv an eldritch screech ami halloo. 



buzz ; frot 

hive 

the haro's 



unearthly, weird 



Ah. Tam ! ah. Tam! thou'll get thy fairin ! 
In hell they'll roast thee like a lierrin ! 
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin ! 
Kate soon will be a woef u' woman I 
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg. 
And win the key-stane of the brig! bridge 

There at them thou thy tail may toss: 
A running stream they dare na cross. 
But ere the key-stane she could make, 
The fient a tail she had to .shake ! flen'i. <ievil 

For Xannie, far before the rest. 
Hard upon noble Maggie prest. 
And flew at Tam with furious ettle ; aim 

But little wist she Maggie's mettle, — 



BANNOCKBURN. 165 

Ae spring brought off her master hale, 

But left behind her ain gray tail : own 

The carlin claught her by the rump, 

And left poor Maggie scarce a stump ! 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read. 
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed ; 
Whene'er to drink you are inclined, 
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind. 
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear: 
Remember Tarn o' Shanter's mare ! 



BANNOCKBURN.* 

(Written in September, 1793. See page 64.) 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
Scots wham Bruce has aften led, 
Welcome to your gory bed, 
Or to victory ! 

• " So may God defend the cause of Truth and Liberty, as He did that 
day! Amen!" — R. B. 

" A friend had got a 'gray Highland shelty ' for Burns, and he made 
a little excursion on it into Galloway. He was particularly struck with 
the scenery round Kenmore. From that place he and his companion took 
the Moor-road to (iatohouse, the dreary country being lighted up by fre- 
quent gleams of a thunder-storm, which soon poured down a Hood of rain. 
Burns spoke not a word. ' What do you think he was about?' asked a 
fellow-traveller, relating the adventure. 'He was charging the English 
army along with Bruce at Bannockburn. He was engaged in the same 
manner on our ride home from St. Mary's Isle. I did not disturb him. 
Next day he produced the following address of Bruce to his troops.' " — 
Mr. Syme, quoted by Currie. 

" Independent of ndy enthusiasm as a Scotchman, I have rarely met 
with anything in history which interested my feelings as a man equal 
with the story of Bannockbnrn. On the one hand, a cruel but able usurper 
leading on the finest army in Europe to extinguish the last spark of free- 
dom among a greatly daring and injured people; on the other hand, the 
desperate relics of a gallant nation, devoting themselves to rescue their 
bleeding country or to perish with her." — Burns, to the Earl of Buchan, 
January 12, 1794. 



166 POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

Now's the day and now's the hour ; 
See the front o' battle lower ; 
See approach proud Edward's power, 
Chains and slavery! 

Wha will be a traitor knave? 
Wha can fill a coward's grave? 
Wha sae base as be a slave? 
Let liini turn and flee ! 

Wha for Scotland's king and law 
Freedom's sword w ill strongly draw 
Free-man stand, or free-man fa', 
Let him on wi' me! 

By oppression's woes and pains ! 
By your sons in servile chains ! 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be free ! 

Lay the proud usurpers low ! 
Tyrants fall in every foel 
Liberty's in every blow ! 
Let us do — or die ! 



MACPIIERSON'S FAREWELL. 

(See page 65.) 

Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, 

The wretch's destinie : 
Macpherson's time will not be long 

On yonder gallows-tree. 

CHORUS. 

Sae rantingly, sae wantonly, 

Sae danntingly gaed he ; 
He played a spring and danced it round. 

Below the gallows-tree. 



POOR mailie's elegy. 167 

O, what is death but partmg breath ? 

On mony a bloody plain 
I've dared his face, and in this place 

I scorn him yet again ! 

Sae rantingly, etc. 

Untie these bands from off my hands, 

And l)ring to me my sword I 
And there's no man in a' Scotland, 

But I'll brave him at a word. 

Sae rantingly, etc. 

I've lived a life of sturt and strife ; trouble 

I die by treacherie : 
It burns my heart I must depart 

And not avenged be. 

Sae rantingly, etc. 

Now farewell, liglit, thou sunshine bright, 

And all beneath the sky ! 
May coward shame distain his name — 

The wretch that dares not die ! 

Sae rantingly, etc. 



POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY. 

(See page 66.) 

Lament in rhyme, lament in prose, 
Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose ; salt 

Our bardie's fate is at a close, 

Past a' remead ; remedy 

The last sad cap-stane of his woes : 

Poor Mailies dead. 



168 



POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



It's no the loss o' warl's gear worlds riches 

Tluit could sae bitter draw the tear 
Or inak our bardie, dowie, wear grief-worn 

The mourning weed : 
He's lost a friend and neebor dear, 

In Mailie dead. 

Thro* a' the town she trotted by him; 
A lang half-mile she could descry him ; 
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, 

She ran wi' speed ; 
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him, 

Thau Mailie dead. 

I wat she was a sheep o' sense, wot, know 

An' could behave herself wi' mense: decorum 

I'll say't, she never brake a fence 

Thro' thievish greed. 
Our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence parlor, inner room 

Sin' Maine's dead. 



Or if he wanders up the howe. 
Her living image in her yowe, 
Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe. 

For l)its of bread ; 
An' down the briny pearls rowe 

For Mailie's dead. 

O ! a' ye bards on bonnie Doon ! 
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune ! 
Come join the melancholious croon 

O' llobin's reed ! 
His heart will never get aboon 

His Mailie dead. 



hollow, valley 

ewe 

knoll 

roll 



bagpipe drones 
moan 

above 



TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 169 

TO MARY IN HEAVEN. 

(Published in Johnson's Museum, 1790. See pp. 70, 180.) 

Thou ling'ring star with less'ning ray, 

That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
Again thou usher'st in the day 

My i\Iary from my .soul was torn. 
O Mary, dear departed shade ! 

Where is thy place of blissful rest? 
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? 

That sacred hour can I forget, 

Can I forget the hallow'd grove, 
Where, by the winding Ayr, we met. 

To live one day of parting love? 
Eternity cannot efface 

Those records dear of transports past, 
Thy image at our last embrace : 

Ah, little thought we 'twas our last! 

Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore : 

Cerhung with wild-woods, thickening green ; 
The fragrant birch and hasvthorn hoar 

Twiu'd amorous round the raptur'd scene : 
The flowers sprang wanton to be pressed. 

The birds sang love on every spray ; 
Till too, too soon, the glowing west 

Proclaimed the speed of winged day. 

Still o'er those scenes my mem'ry wakes, 

And fondly broods with miser care ; 
Time but th' impression stronger makes, 

As streams their channels deeper wear. 
My Mary, dear departed shade ! 

AVhere is thy place of blissful rest ? 
See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? 

Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast ? 



170 POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



O, WILLIE BREW'D. 

(A house-warming. Willie is William Niool ; Allan is Allan Masterson ; 
Robert is Robert Burns. See page 70.) 



O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut, malt 

And Rob and Allan came to see : 
Three blither hearts that lee-lang night live-long 

Ye wad na find in Christendie. 

We are na fou, we're no that fou, 

But just a drappie in our e'e ; 
The cock may craw, the day may daw, 
And aye we'll taste the barley bree. juice 

II. 

Here are we met, three merry boys, 

Three merry boys, I trow are we ; 
And mony a night we'v'^e merry been, 

And mony may we hope to be ! 

III. 

It is the moon — I ken her horn. 

That's blinking in the lift sae hie; sky 

She shines sae bright to wyle us hame, entice 

But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee ! 

IV. 

Wha first shall rise to gang awa', 

A cuckold, coward loon is he ! ragamuffln 

Wha last beside his chair shall fa', 
He is the king amang us three ! 

We are na fou, we're no that fou, 

But just a drappie in our e'e ; 
The cock may craw, the day may daw, 
And aye we'll taste the barley bree. 



AULD LANG SYNE. 171 

AULD LAXG SYNE* 
(Johnson's Museum, 179fi. See page 70.) 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot 

And never brought to min"? 
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 

And auld lang syne? 

CHORUS. 

For auld lantj syne, my dear, 

For auld lang syne. 
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 

"We twa hae run about the braes, 

And pou'd the gowans fine ; \ P^wirs'"''^ 

But we've wandered niony a weary fitt foot 

Sin auld lang syne. 

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, jug 

And surely I'll be mine ; 
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, 

For auld lang syne. 

We twa hae paddled in the burn brook 

Fra mornin sun till dine ; 
But seas between us braid hae roar'd 

Sin auld lang syne. 

And here's a hand, my trusty fier, companion 

And gie's a hand o' thine ; 
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught, hearty drink, swig 

For auld lang syne. 

* " Is not the Scotch phrase ' Auld lang syne ' exceedingly expressive? " 
■Burns, in letter to Mrs. Dunlop. 



172 



POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



DUNCAN GRAY. 

(Written for the work of Mr. Thomson. See page 70.) 

I. 

Duncan Gray cam here to woo, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 
On blythe yule night when we were fou ! 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 
Maggie coost her head fu' high, cast 

Look'd asklent and unco skeigh, | ''p'^oy"''pr;„„i 

Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh ; made ; aloof 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 



II. 

Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd, 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 

Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig, 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 

Duncan sigh'd baith out and in, 

Grat his e'en baith bleer't and blin', 

Spak o' lowpin o'er a linn ; 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 

III. 
Time and chance are but a tide, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 
Slighted love is sair to bide, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't! 
Shall I, like a fool, quoth he. 
For a haughty huzzie die ? 
She may go to — France for me ! 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't 1 

IV. 

How it comes let doctors tell. 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't! 

Meg grew sick — as he grew hale. 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 



supplicated 
a rocky islet 



I shed tears. 

i rried ; red 

rocky waterfall 



iade 



FAREWELL TO AYR. 



173 



Something in her bosom wrings, 
For relief a sigh she brings : 
And O, her e'en, they spak sic things ! 
Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 



eyes ; such 



V. 

Duncan was a lad o' grace, 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 
Maggie's was a piteous case. 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! 
Duncan could na be her death. 
Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath ; 
Now they are crouse and canty baith. 

Ha, ha, the wooing o't ! ' 



quenched 
( courageous ; 
"/ uierry 



FAREWELL TO AYR. 

(See page 80.) 

The gloomy night is gathering fast, 
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast, 
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain, 
I see it driving o'r the plain ; 
The hunter now has left the moor. 
The scatter'd coveys meet secure, 
While here I wander, prest with care, 
Along the lonely banks of Ayr. 



The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn 
By early Winter's ravage torn ; 
Across her placid azure sky, 
She sees the scowling tempest fly ; 
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave, 
I think upon the stormy wave. 
Where many a danger I must dare. 
Far from the bonny banks of Ayr. 



174 . POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

'Tis not the surging billow's roar, 
'Tis not the fatal deadly shore ; 
Tho' death in every shape appear, 
The wretched have no more to fear ; 
But round my heart the ties are bound, 
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound — 
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear. 
To leave the bonny banks of Ayr. 

Farewell, old Coila's hills and dales, Scotland's 

Her healthy moors and winding vales ; 
The scenes where w-retched fancy roves, 
Pursuing past, unhappy loves ! 
Farewell, my friends ! Farewell, my foes ! 
My peace with these, my love with those — 
The bursting tears my heart declare, 
Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr. 



MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING. 

(Written for Mr. Thomson. See page 87.) 

I. 

She is a winsome wee thing. 
She is a handsome wee thing, 
She is a bonny wee thing, — 
This .sweet wee wife o' mine. 

II. 

I never saw a fairer, 
I never lo'ed a dearer ; 

And niest my heart I'll wear her, next 

For fear my jewel tine. loso, be lost 

III. 

She is a winsome wee thing, 
She is a handsome wee thing. 
She is a bonny wee thing, — 
This sweet wee wife o' mine. 



FOR a' that, and a' THAT. 175 



IV. 



The warld's wrack we share o't ; 
Tlie wrastle and the care o't ; 
Wi' her I'll blithely bear it, 
And think my lot divine. 



FOR A' THAT, AND A' THAT. 

( " The piece is not poetry, but will be allowed to be two or three pretty 
good prose thoughts inverted iuto rhyme." — Burns, Jan. 1, 1795. See 
pp. 25, 85.) 

Is there, for honest poverty 

That hangs his head and a' that? all 

The coward-slave, we pass him by, 

We dare be poor for a' that ; 
For a' that, and a' that, 

Onr toils obscure, and a' that, 
The rank is but the guinea's stamp. 

The man's the gowd for a' that. gold 

What tho' on hamely fare we dine. 

Wear hoddin gray, and a' that ; coarse wool 

Gie fools their sticks, and knaves their wine ; 

A man's a man for a' that ; 
For a' that, and a' that. 

Their tinsel show, and a' that ; 
The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 

Is king o' men for a' that. 



•o 



Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord, forward fellow 

Wha struts and stares and a' that ; 
Tho' hundreds worship at his word, 

He's but a coof for a' that ; ninny, ass 

For a' that, and a' that. 

His riband, star, and a' that; 
The man of independent mind, 

He looks and laughs at a' that. 



17G POEMS OF ROBEUT UUUNS. 

A prince can male a belted knight, 

A marquis, duke, and a' that : 
But an honest man's aboon his might! above 

Guid faith he mauna fa" that : -J '"""** "«' "^^ 

For a' that, and a' that. 

Their dignities, and a' that, 
The pith o' sense, and i)ride o' worth. 

Are higher ranks than a' that. 

Then let us pray that come it may, 

As come it will, for a' that. 
That s^se and worth, o'er a' the earth, 

May bear the gree and a' that; pre-eminence 

For a' that, and a' that, 

It's com in yet for a' that. 
That man to man, the warld o'er, 

Sliall brothers be for a' that. 



OX SKEIXC; A WOINDKI) II AUK LIMP BY ME 
WHICH A FELLOW HAD JFST SHOT. 

(Tlie yoini;; man Thomson, who hml shot tlie hare, said to Allan Cun- 
nUiKham, •'Hums was in yreat wrath, and curseil me, and saiil little 
hindered him from throwing me into the Nith." See page 55.) 

Inhuman man ! curse on thy barb'rous art. 

And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye! 

May never pity soothe thee with a sigh. 
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart. 

Go live, poor wand'rer of the wood and field. 

The bitter little that of life remains! 

No more tin- thick'ning brakes and verdant plains 
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. 

Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest, 
Xo more of rest, but now tliy dying bed ! 
The shelt'ring riisiies wiiistling o'er thy head. 

The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. 



A WlNTEll >!IGHT. 177 

Oft as by winding Nith, 1, musing, wait 

The sober eve, or hail the cheeriiil dawn, 

I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn. 
And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless 
fate! 



A wixtp:r night. 

(" This poem is worth several homihes on Mercy, for it is the voice of 
Mercy herself." — Carlyle. See page 57.) 

When biting Boreas, fell and doure, keen; stern 

Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r; 

AVheu Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r stare 

Far south the lift, sky 

Dim-dark'ning through tlie flaky show'r, 

Or whirling drift; 

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked, 
Poor labor sweet in sleep was locked, 
^^'hile burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked, 

Wild-eddying swirl. 
Or through the mining outlet bocked, gushed, vomited 

Down headlong huil. 

List'ning the doors and winnocks rattle, windows 

I thought me on the ourie cattle, sliiveiinfr 

Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle helpless; peltin- 

O' winter war, 

And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle scramble 

Beneath a scar. cliti; i.recipico 

Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, eadi ho|,i.ing 

That, ill the merry months o' spring. 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

What comes o' thee ? 
^^ here wilt thou cower thy chitterina" wins-. 

And close thy e'e? 



178 



POEMS OF K015ERT nUii]s'S. 



Ev'n you on inurd'riiig errands toil'd, 
Lone from your savage lioines exiled, 
The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cote spoiled, 

My heart forgets. 
While pitiless the tempest wild 

Sore on you beats. 

Now Phrebe in lier midnitrlit reign. 
Dark nuittted, viewed the dreary plain; 
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train. 

Rose in my soul, 
When on my ear tliis plaintive strain 

Slow, solemn, stole: — 

" Blow, blow,* ye wind.s, with heavier gust ! 
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost; 
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows ! 
Xot all your rage, as now united, shows 

More hard nnkindne.ss, unrelenting, 

Vengeful malice unrepenting, 
Than heavcn-illiimined man on brother man be- 



" See stern Oppression's iron grip, 
Or mad Ambition's gory hand. 
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip, 
Woe, Want, and ^Murder o'er a land! 
Even in the peaceful rural vale. 
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale, 
How pamjHM-'d Luxury. Flattery by her side. 
The parasite empoisoning her ear, ^ 
With all the servile wretches in the rear, 
Looks o'er proud Property, extended wide ; 

And eyes the simple rustic hind. 
Whose toil upholds the glittering show — 
A creature of another kind. 
Some coarser substance, unrefin'd — 
Placed for her lordlv use thus far. thus vile, below. 



* See SOUS' in As You Like it. 



A WINTER NIGHT. 179 

" Where, where is Love's fond, tender throe 
With lordly Honor's lofty brow, 

The powers you proudly own ? 
Ts there beneath Love's noble name, 
Can harbor, dark, the selfish aim, 

To bless himself alone ! 
]\Iark maiden innocence a prey 

To love-pretending snares. 
This boasted Honor turns away, 

Shunning soft Pity's rising sway, 
Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers; 

Periiaps this hour, in ^Misery's squalid nest. 

She strains your infant to her joyless breast, 
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking 
blast I 



" Oh 3^e ! who sunk in beds of down. 
Feel not a want but what yourselves create. 
Think for a moment, on liis wretched fate, 

AVhom friends and fortune (piite disown ! 
Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call, 

Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep. 
While through the ragged roof and clunky wall. 

Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap ! 

Think on the dungeon's grim confine. 

Where Guilt and poor jNIisfortune pine ! 

Guilt, erring man, relenting view! 

But shall thy legal rage pursue 

The wretch, already crushed low 

By cruel Fortune's undeserved blow ? 
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress : 
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss ! " 



I heard nae raair, for Chanticleer 
Shook off the pouthery snaw, 

And hailed the morning with a cheer — 
A cottage-rousing craw ! 



180 POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 

lUit deep this truth impressed my mind ; 

Through all His works abroad, 
Tlie heart benevolent and kind 

The most resembles God. 



IIKillLAXL) MAKY.* 

(See pp.70, 1G9.) 

I. 

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around 

Tiie castle of Montgomery, 
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, 

Your waters never drumlie I muil.ly 

There simmer first unfald her robes, ] '^"I'tlfltm ' 

And there tlie langest tarry: 
For there I took tlie last fareweel 

O' my sweet Highland Mary. 

II. 

How sweetly bloomed tlie gay green birk. 

How rich the hawthorn'.s blossom, 
As underneath the fragrant shade 

I clasped her to my bosom ! 
The golden hours on angel wings, 

Flew o'er me and my dearie ; 
For dear to me as light and ]\U\ 

Was my sweet Highland Mary. 

* Mary Campbell lived in Greenuck. Burns became acquainted witb 
her while mi service at the castle of Montgdinery. At i)artinK, tliey 
plighted their faith by the exchange r)f Bibles, and lifting water in their 
hands from a running brook, they vowed love while woods grew and 
waters ran. They never met again. She was carried off by a fever. 
Burns's tirst intimation of her death was when he visited her friends to 
meet her on her return from Cowal, whither .she had gone to prepare for 
marriage. The Bible Burns gave her, with his autograph in it, and a 
long, bright lock of her hair, were in the keeping of her relatives a few 
years ago. This song was written for Mr. Thomson's book. 



^ 



AE FOND KISS. 181 



III. 

\Vi' luony a vow, and locked embrace, 

Our parting was fu' tender ; 
And, pledging aft to meet again, 

We tore ouvsels asunder ; 
But oh ! fell death's untimely frost. 

That nipt my flower sae early ! 
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, 

That wraps my Highland Mary ! 

IV. 

O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, 

I aft hae kissed sae fondly ! 
And closed for aye the sparkling glance, 

That dwelt on me sae kindly ! 
And moldering now in silent dust, 

The heart that lo'ed me dearly ! 
But still within my bosom's core 

Shall live my Highland Mary. 



AE FOND KISS. 

(" These exquisitely affecting stanzas contain the essence of a thousand 
love-tales." — Walter Scott. See page 70.) 

I. 

As fond kiss, and then we sever ; 
Ae farewell, and then forever ! 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee. 
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee. 
Who shall say that fortune grieves him 
While the star of hope she leaves him ? 
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me ; 
Dark despair around benights me. 



18:^ POEMS OF ROBERT BURNS. 



II. 

I'll ueer blame my partial fancy, 
Naetliiiig could resist my Xaiicy ; 
But to see her was to love her; 
Love but her, and love forever. — 
Had we never lov'd sae kindly, 
Had we never lov'd sae blindly. 
Never met — or never parted. 
We had ne'er been broken hearted. 

III. 

Fare thee weel, thou tirst and fairest! 
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest ! 
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, 
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure ! 
.\e fond kiss, and then we sever; 
Ae farewell, alas! forever I 
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee, 
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee! 



INDEX. 



abbreviations, 107 

adamant of fate, 79, 132 

Addison, Joseph, 71, 128 

ae„ 57, 118, 181 

"Ae Fond Kiss," 181 

.Eneid, 118 

.Eolian harp, 48, 61, 113, 120 

.Eolus, 113 

^schylus, 6-1, 122 

/Etna, 118 

atTectation, bane, 50, 113 

aiblins, 63, 121 

Allan Ramsay, 44, 111 

alliteration, 122 

Americana Ilias in Nuce, 17 

amuck, 100, 141 

aphorism, 70, 127 

Apollo, 67. 116, 125 

apostles. Christian, 95, 139 

" Arancana," 98, 140 

Arcadian, 47, 112 

aristocracy, Dumfries, 40, 89 

armada, leprous, 78, 132 

Armour, Jean, 87, 135 

Arnold, Matthew, 113 

Arnold, Thomas, 121 

arrest, skulking to avoid, 80, 132 

"Art of Poetry," 113 

assuage, peculiar use, 95, 138 

Athos, Mt., carved, 109 

"AuldBrig,"58, 118 

" Auld Lang Syne," 70, 126, 171 

Auld Mare, 58, 118 

Auld Niokie-ben, 63, 121 

Aurora, Guide's, 142 

Austen, Jane, 53, 115 

Aventine, Mt., 123 



Ayr, 58, 67, SO. 124, 132, 173 

" Ayr, Farewell to," 80, 132, 173 



B 



Babylons, little, 94, 138 
backwoods of America, 42, 110 
Bacon, Francis, 120 
Bacon, Koger, 95, 139 
Baillie, Lady Grizzcl, 90, 136 
baited, 64, 122 

" Bannockburn," 64, 122, 165 
bath, inud-l)ath, 78, 131 
Bathurst, Allen, 121 
Batteux, Charles, 72, 128 
bear, barley, 74, 130 
beast ie, mouse, 46, 153 
Beaumont, Francis, 125 
Beersheba, 55, 116 
"Beggar's Bush," 68, 125 
"Beggar's Opera," 68, 1.35 
"Beggars, The Jolly," 67, 135 
Bethesda, pool of, 86, 134 
Betterton, Thomas, 108 
bide. 62, 120 
-bing, corn-bing, 90, 13(5 
biography, true end of, 42, 110 
Birkbeck, Morris, 42, 110 
Blackie, Dr., 114 
Blacklock, Dr., 85, 134 
bock'd, 57, 118 
Boileau, Nicholas, 72, 128 
bombast, 52, 114 
bon-)nots, 81, 1.32 
Boreas, 57, 118 
Borgia family, 55, 116 
borrowed colors, world in, 75, 130 
bowels. Christian, 40, 109 
brats and callets, 68, 125 
183 



184 



INDKX. 



l)raltle,(i-.', 120 

brave, 39, lOS 

" BriR. Auld," r.S, IIH 

-broo. snaw-broM, oS, US 

Browiiiiij;, Mis., (luoted. 100 

" Bniee's Address," t)4, 1J12, Kio 

I'.iinl)ury"s print, .S'J, lo^J 

Imriii, 57. 117 

Buriiewiu, .">«, ll'.t 

Biirn-the-wiud, 58, ll'.» 

burns, brooks, 57, IIH 

Burns, Robert . ai)i>earance, ',Vi, 3.S, H:\ ; 
a volunteer soldier, l.«>; erisis of 
life, 1)1; debts, VM; bibliography, 
104; debut in "society," 81-»i, 
I'.i'l: rliniuiiluuical, ."VJ, ;5;{: his 
fatlier, l.S-'J(i, 7(1, 77, '.»7, i:?l ; Hrst 
love, 78; glowing eyes, 83, 133; 
in Edinburnii, l.'L'; ear for niusie, 
]2<i: early rea<liug, I'ilt; intoxiea- 
tion, 137: no hired soldier, I'M], 
i:!7; his failure, 137 ; journal, IIU; 
gayety, 131 ; letters, 51, 52; popn- 
lariiy.4S: religion, '.h.i, 141 ; repri- 
mand, 1.3»'.; sobriety ( ?), 8tt; self- 
knowledge, 75, 130; sincerity, 49; 
sympathy, tW; songs, (W; vigor, 
5'.», 00, 02 : usual i>otation, 1.3(j 

Butler, Samuel, :«», 'M, 107 

Byron. Lord. 50, 51, 70, 100, 101, 102, 
113, 115, 131, 141 



Cacus, tin, 12.? 

Caesar, Julius, 131 

caird, 08, 125 

Caleilonian Hunt. 40, 109 

calf, golden, 1>8. 141 

callets, brats and, 08 

Calviuist, lO'.t 

Cauioens, poet, '.15, 130 

Campbell, Mary, 100, 180 

Campbell, poet, (pioted. 1.30 

cannon sent by Burns to the French, 

i:!<; 

cant, 50, li;! 

cantata, 08, 125 

Caraniucl. 110 

carlin. 07, 125 

Carlyle, 7, 20, 28, 20, 30, 3:?, ia5, etc. 



cast the Hrst stone, 80, 1.3<) 

"C:vstle of Indolence," 111 

Cavaliers. 04 

Cells, C>5. 117, 123 

Cervantes. 'M, 08, 138 

chalice, poison, 05, 138 

Channing, 117 

character of .'^aiaii. 101 

chariot of I'riani. 5S, 110 

Chaucer, (pioted, 143 

"Childe Uar.dd," 113 

Chinese Letters, KYJ 

chittering. 03, 121 

Christian bowels, 40, 100 

chronological table, 32-37 

church, schisms in, 71, 12H 

church, state, IHO 

clearness of sight, 58, 50 

Coil, 58 

Coleridge on genius, i;W 

collision with otlicial superiors. SS, 1,35 

" Ct)metly, Divine," Dante's, 110 

Commissioners of Exci.se, 40 

Constable's Miscellany, 41, 110 

Cooper's novels, 115 

Coperuicau theory, l'>0 

copiicr-<'olored chiefs, 53, 115 

corn-bing, IN), 13<i 

"Cotter's Saturday Night," 77, 114, 

131. V'A, 1.54 
Council of Trent, rrti, 117 
ctuirser of the sun. 102, 142 
Cowley, poet, 107 
cranreuch. 4(!, 112 
credulity, generous, 48, 113 
critical comments, 20-30 
••ritii-isni. cold business, 45 
(,'rockford, 11(5 
crossing the Rubicon, 77, 131 
Cromek, lOS 

Cromwell's i)ersiuial ai)pearance, 11 
" Crusoe, Robinson," .">0, 110 
Currie, biographer, 40, 07, 108, 100, 

i;« 

Cyclops, 58, lis 

D 

Daisy, "To a .Mountain Daisy," 40. 
I 112, 151 
! Dan to Beersheba, .55, 110 



INDEX. 



185 



Dante, 60, ll'.l 
"darkness visible,"' (54, 122 
death, slernest sum-total, 96, 13i) 
death, third gate of deliverance, 02, 

137 ; triumph over, 9(5, 139 
debts of Burns, 86, 87, 134 
(ieep-lairiiis, 62, 120 
deer-stealinj,', 40. 108 
definition of j^enius, 115 
Defoe, Daniel, 59, 119 
Deil, devil, 58 

deliverance, gates of, 91, 137 
Delphi, 54, 116 
De Quiucey, 114 
devil, the very, 63, 64, 121 
devils, passions raging like, 80, 132 
devil's-service, 78, 132 
diameter of gin-horse (!), 103, 142 
"Diamond Necklace," 11 
Dickens, Charles, 112 
dim eye, 55, 117 
diniia, (53, 121 
dithyrambic, VA, 122 
"Divine Comedy," 119 
doctrine of association, 61, 120 
does, for do(?). 50, 113 
"Don Juan," 51, 113 
"Don Quixote," 138 
doubts, religious, 79 
douce gudeman, 83, 133 
donre, 57, 118 
dowie, 90, 136 

" Drama, Technique of the," 115 
dribble, 46, 112 
"Drink, Scotch," 58, 158 
drollery and humor, 65, 123 
drops of song, 69 
Druids, 56, 117 
Dryden, John, 107 
Dumfries aristocracy, 40, 89, 136 
Duncan Gray, 70, 172 
Dunlop, Mrs., 52, 114, 120, 124 
Dweller in yon dungeon, 64, 121, 158 



E 



Edgeworth, Maria, 115 
Edinburgh, 72, 76, SO, 81, 132, etc. 
" Elegy on Poor Maillie," m, 124, 
167 



emblem, thistle, 74, 130 
Emerson, R. W., 110, 111, 120 
empyrean, 7(), 131 
enshrined in all hearts. Burns, 103, 

142 
ephemeral, 53, 115 
Epics, iron-mailed, 53, 115 
epitaph, of Keats, 119 
era, but one in Burus's life, 74, 75, 130 
Erinyes, 121, 122 
Escobar, 109 
essays and examinations, topics, 147- 

150 
eternal melodies, 46, 111 
ether, etymology of, 131, 141 
Eumenides, 121, 122 
excise, 86, 109, 134 



FabnlosHfs Hydaspes, 118 

failure, causes of, 92, 137 

fardels, 95, 138 

"Farewell, Macpherson's," 65, 122, 

1(}6 
" Farewell to Ayr," 80, 132, 173 
"Farmer's Mare," 58 
" Farmer's Salutation," 58, 118 
fate, adamant of, 79, 132 : in Greek 

tragedy, 65, 123; as viewed by 

^Vhitti'er (quoted), 130 
father of Burns, 18, 76, 77, 131 
Ferguson, Adam, 82,84, 133 
Ferguson, Robert, poet, 44, 111 
fire from heaven, 100, 141 
Fisher's "Outlines of History," 135 
FIcche, La, 72, 129 
Fletcher, A., of Saltoun, 70, 126, 

127 
Fletcher's aphorism, 70 
forms, New Light, etc., 40, 99, 109 
" Fourfold State of Man," 71 
fourth gate, 137 
France, wits of, 72, 128 
Franklin at court, 132 
Freucli politics, meteors of, 88, 135 
Freytag's "Technique of the 

Drama," 115 
friendship, true, extinct (?), 137 
Furies of iEschylus, 121 



186 



INDEX. 



G 



(Jrra, Earth, 111 

(Jaelic, lli:; 

(ialileo (ialilei, 95, 139 

(iaina, Vasco da, 139 

Garpal, hauuted, 58, 118 

gates of deliverance, 91, 92, 137 

fiauge, resolved to, 8(5, IM 

(iay. Jolin, 1'_'5 

gayety, of Burns, 131 

generous credulity, 48, 113 

Geneva, 71. 128 

genius, definition fif, 115, i;iO 

genius of Kngland, 14 

"Gentle .Slieplicrd," 111 

Giaour, 50,113, 114 

gies, 57, 118 

gin-liorse, 103, 142 

(Tlenbuck. 5S, 1 is 

Glover, Richard, 71, 127 

go and iki otherwise, it.T 

(iod and Maniinon, 101, 141 

(Joethe, 128 

golden calf, 98, 141 

(ioldsniith, 71, 109, 113, 114, 118, 127, 

VM 
goodness, persecuted, 95, 1.39 
Gordon, Duchess of, 84 
grapes of thorns, *M 
(J ray, Duncan, 70, 172 
(iray, liionias, 71, 127 
grazierdoni, 39 
Greenock, .58. 1^ 
(irey, Laily Jane, 110 
(irierson, Thomas, 82 
(irizzel, " Lady G. Baillie," 90 
grocerdoin, 89 
gudeman, douce, 83, I'Xi 
gudewife, 129 
Guido's Aurora, 142 
gumlie, 58, 118 

H 

Hallani, Henry, 128 
Halli\\ell-Phillipi)S, 109 
Halloween, 55, 117 
•'Hamlet," 114 
Hannibal, 129 



happiness, only true, 7(5. 130 

happing, (i.'>, 120 

happy \alley, 73, 129 

happy warrior, 130 

"Hare, the Wounded," 55, 117, 17(5 

Hargreaves, .Tames, 108 

harmony, medium t)f, (i9, 12(i 

"Har.dd, ("hilde," 50, 113 

harp. .Eolian, 48, (il, 113, 120 

hater, a gf)od, t>4, 121 

haunted (Jarpal, 5S, lis 

heart, the softest, 93, K'>8 

hell, of Dante, 60, 119 

Hen-nles, oxen of, 123 

" Hero as Man of Letters, ' 17-2fi, l.'i5 

" Heroes and Hero-Worship," 113 

hero to one's own valet, 40, 108 

Hesiod, 118 

" Highland Mary," 70, 1(;9, 180 

high-mindedness, I'M 

hing, 90, i:5() 

Hinnom. 12.5 

hippodrome, 103, 142 

hireling soldier, no, 91, 13*! 

" History of the Freiu-h Revolution," 

135 
"Holy Fair," .5(i, 117 
Home, Henry, 12S 
Homer, .53, .5S. .59, 95, 115, 119, 138 
honor and pride, 9."5, 137 
Horace, poet, 49, ll.?, US, l.T. 
" Hudil)ras, ■ 107 

" Human Understanding," l^cke, 97 
Hume, David, 71, 128 
humor, (>5, 123 

I 

idyl..5r,, 117 

"iliad," 119 

llia.i Americdua in Nuce, 17 

ilk,»}3, 120 

" II Pen.seroso," 123 

" Immortality, Ode," V.V) 

independence, rock of, 75, 88, 134, 

1.38 
indifferent, sense of, (53, 121 
iiKlir/natio, C,'.',, 90, 121, i:«; 
infern.il pit, f4. 122 
iti inalain parteiii, 84, 133 
intemperance, 137 



INDEX. 



187 



ititercalated, 74, 130 
in vaciin, 71, 127 
inverted love, 63, 121 
Irvine, life at, 7(> 
Isle of Dogs, 142 
Italian trait, 113 

J 

Jacobite, 71,811, rjs, 13(i 

James I., James II., 128 

jaups, o8, lis 

Jean Paul, 100, 141 

Jeffrey, Francis, 110 

jenny, spiniiiiig-j., 39, 108 

"Jerusalem Delivered,'" 139 

John-a-Combe, 40 

Johnson, Dr., <)3, 64, 71, 112, 121, 127, 

134, 137 
" Jolly Beggars," 67, 125 
"Juan, Don, "51, 113 
jubilee. Roman, 56, 117 
Juvenal, satirist, 121 

K 

Kames, Lord, 71, 72, 128 

Koats, poet, 60, 119 

ken, 63, 121 

kind, correct use of, 41, 109 

King Charles (England), 94 

King Philip (Spain), 94 

Knights of the Cross, 53, 115 



La Fleche, 72, 129 

laird, 84, 133 

lairing, 120 

Langhorne, poet, 83, 1.33 

" Last Man," Campbell's, 139 

" Latter Day Pamphlets," 121 

laws, songs and, 70, 73, 127 

" Leech Gatherer, The," 131 

leprous armada, 78, 132 

liberty, Burns's lost, 80, 132 

lift, r,7, 118 

limbo, 69, 126 

line, Pelops's, 05, 123 

linking it, 90, 136 

literature, crowded portal of, 15 



literature, Scottish, 70, 71, 73, 129 

loadstar, 88, 135 

Locke, John, 97, 140 

Lockhart, 39, 41, 42, 81, 89, 108, 114, 

133 
logic, Scottish, 72, 129 
logic, threshing-tloor of, 129 
Louis XIV., 116 
Louvre, 116 

Lowe, Sir Hudson, 45, 111 
Lowell on Carlylc, 2t)-2S 
Lucy, Sir Thomas, 40, 108 
Lugar, 58 
lunatic, 115 
"Lusiad," 139 
Luther, Martin, 56, 116 



M 



Mably, publicist, 72, 129 

Macaulay, 117, 120, 140 

Macbeth, 114 

" Macphei-son's Farewell," 65, 122 

madrigals, 69, 125 

Maecenas, 87, 89, 135 

Mahaffy, 112 

" Maillie, Elegy on Poor," 66, 124, 167 

mohmi partem, in, 84, 133 

Mammon-worship, 101, 141 

" Mare, Farmer's Auld," 58, 66, 123 

Marie Antoinette, 10 

Mars, Son of, 67, 125 

" Mary in Heaven, To," 70, 169 

material fate, 65, 123 

Manchline, 125 

mausoleum, 39, 103, 108 

men", for mend, 63, 121 

" Merchant of Venice," 112, 115 126, 

137 
metaphors, mixed ( ?) , 93, 138 
meteors of French politics, 88, 135 
midnight in a great city, 12, 13 
Milton, 97, 101, 102, 104, 116, 123, 131, 

138, 140, 143 
Minden's plains, 82, 133 
Minerva Press, 54, 11(5 
misfortunes, sum-total of, 96, 139 
"Model Prisons," 121 
modica, 85, 134 
Montesquieu, Baron, 72, 129 



188 



INDEX. 



nionnnieiits to Huriis, .JO. lOS 
Moore, Dr., letter (iiutohio;;raphical 

to), 132 
Moore, Thouias, 115 
Morley, «>ii Carlylo's essays, 29, 30, 

111 ' 
Mossffiel, "lo, 7(), 111, IHJ 
•• Mouse, To a," O*;, 1J3, 153 
iniul-bath of vices, 78, 131 
-Miisiius, m, 124 
music of the heart, l'J5, 126 
music of the spheres, 111 



N 



Naucy, Poosie. »'>7, 125 

Najmh-oii Hiiuaparte, (m, SI, 111, 123 

Nasmyth's jiictiire, 83, IXi 

New Light i-ierpy. 40, 7'.», IW 

New Liulit forms, etc, 7'.i, W, 117 

Nii-kif-hcii, tlio rievil, (13, 121 

Nicnli oti Ctrlyle's style. 2«, 21) 

Niuirods, f>5. 123 

nine (lays' wonder, 43, 110 

noosiiiL'. •">4, 122 

novels and epics, .'>.3, 115 

" Xovuin Orffinnim," W, 120 

"Nut-Hrown Maid," 47, 112 



O 



Odysseus, 118 

'•<i:dipiis." 123 
oflicial siipcriiirs. ii;:ly, S8, l.'tO 
Old Liiiht clerjjj', 40, "lO<t 
Old I.if^lit fiirnis. '.Kt. 117 
Osjrood, Mrs . quilted, 12(> 
Ossorius, (59, 12<) 
ostracism, social, 80 
Oswal.l, Mrs., 64, 122, 158 
oiirie, (52, 120 
Ovid, 133 



paraiion. 47, 112 

" I'ar.-idise Lo.st."' (•7, VI'k 12*; 

Parnassus, 116 

passions rairintr like ilevils, 80, l.'lJ 

Paterson, bioj;rapher, lOS 



patriotism, and prejudice ( ?), 72, 73, 
129 

patronage, scorned, 86, !I2, 93, 1.34 

Paul. .lean (= Richter?). 100, 141 

pearl-tisliers, 104, 143 

Peloi)s's line, Ii5, 123 

Petrarch, 104, 112, 143 

Philip II. (Spain), 138 

picturesque tourists, S7, 1.3.-I 

pkbiKrli,!, 103, 142 

poetry, declining (?), 116 

poet-soul, 4t!, Ill 

I)olilics, Biirns's, 88, 136 

Polyplnmus, 118 

pool, Hcthesda, 8t) 

Poosie XaiK-y, 67, 125 

Pope. poet, (pioted, 1.32 

Poussiii, Nicholas, lis 
! prejudice, Scotch, 129 
j Preshyterian. ln9 

Priam, .".s, 119 

pride. 47, 93, 112, i:;7 

priest-like father, 77, 131 

Prior, Matthew, 112 

pro|iagan<la, 7.5, 129 

I)roi.het>, 95. 1.39 

Puritans. 107 

Pythagoras. Ill 



() 



quality, 69. 125 

Ouesnir . F., political economist, 72, 
129 



K 



Rahelais, F., Olt. HI 

Racine, ilramalist, 72, 128 

Rambler, 71. 127 

Rams.n-. .Mian, 44. Ill 

Hanisgate, 103, 142 

Rasselas, 71, 127, 129 

Ratfonkey, 58, 118 

raucle, 67, 125 

*' rea.sonable service," 98, 141 

" Reason of t'hurch Government." 

110. 11.'-., 141, 142 
rcd-wat-slir..l. .".9. 119 
Reeil, Professor Henry, 121 



INDEX. 



181) 



relief, fruin (?). tlir()uj;h(?), 47, 112 
religion of Burns ( ?), 98, '.t'J, 141 
religion, nat. hist, of, 73 
religious scruples, 79 
" Reliques," Percy's, 112 
rent, doctrine of, 72, 73 
restaurateur, 97, 140 
retribution, .S9, 108 
Retzsch, Moritz, 57, 117 
Kichardson, Samuel, 59, 119 
Ki<-hter (= Jean Paul?), 100, 141 
Kienzi, ina<l, 81, 132 
Robertson, William, -71, 72, 128 
rock of independence, 75, 88, l.'V4, 138 
Rousseau, J. J., lO.i, 142 
Ri)\ve, Nicholas, 108 
rowes, 58, 118 
Rubicon, 131 

Ruin, luingrv Ruiu, 80, 132 
Ruskin, John, 118 



saeva imlifinatio, 90, K56 

Sahara waltzes, 10 

Saracens in turbans, 53, 115 

" Sartor Rcsartus," quoted, Ki, VXJ 

Satan, Milton's, Burns' study of 

(?), 101,103, 121,123 
scar, f)2, 120 

schisms in church and state, 71, 128 
"Scotch Drink," 119, 158 
Scotland became British, 128 
"Scots wha hae," etc., VA, 70, 122, 

165 
Scott, Walter, 73, 82, 110, 115, 129, 

132, 140 
Scottish prejudice, 73, 129 
self-help, 8<;, 1:14 
self-knowledge, 75. 130 
Sevigne, Madame de, 108 
Shairp, 114 

Shakespeare, hombast in (?), 52, 114 
Shakespeare, 52, (iO, (!9, 94, 104, 114, 

11(5, I'JO, 138 
Shandy, Tristram, 121 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 112 
si vis me jfpre, etc., 49, 113 
sincerity, 49, 113, 118 
skulking to avoid arrest, 80, 132 



Slop, Dr., 63, 121 

" Smectymnuus," 141 

Smith, Adam, 71, 72, 128 

smithy, 58, 118 

snaw-broo, 58, 118 

sobriety, Burns's character for, 80 

Socrates, 95, 138 

Son of Mars, 67, 125 

songs of Burns, 58 

Sophocles, 123 

soul, structure of, Burus's remarks 
on, 61 

sovereigns, passing of, 14 

spate, ,58, 118 

"Spectator," 71, 127 

spheres, music of the, 46, 111 

spinning-jenny, 39, 108 

Spraguc, 108, 115, et passim 

sprattle, 62, 120 

stake, 63, 121 

Steele, Richard, 71, 128 

Sterne, Laurence, 63, 121, 124 

Stewart, Dugald, 59, 61, 82, 119 

"strong waters," 50, 114 

"Stump Orator," 15, 16. 17, 130, l.'?l 

sturt, tio, 123 
'style. Burns', 114 

sud, <K). i:56 

supercilious. 112 
■superiors, otHcial, relations to, 88 

Swifl, Dean, 103, 136, 142 

Swinhurne, A. C, 113 

T 

Taine, 112, 121 

"Tarn o' Shanter," 66, 124, 159-165 

Tarboltoii, 5,"), IK; 

Tasso, Torquato, 95, 139 

teachers, the world's, 95, 138 

"Technique of the Drama," Frey- 

tag's, 115 
"Temi)c.st, The," 112 
Teniers, David, 68, 125 
Teufelsdrockh, Profe.ssor (!),12 
Thehes, 65, 123 
Theocritus, 56, 117 
third gate of delirerance, 92, 137 
thistle, national emblem, 74. 130 
thole, 46, 112 



190 



INDEX. 



Thomson, James, poet, 111 
thowes, 58, lis 
Tieck, Ludwig, &>, 124 
Titan, 44, 111 
Tol)y. Uncle, (J3, TJl 
Topiiet, ()7, 1_'4. 12.". 
tourists, picturesque, 87, IST) 
trai^edy, tiftli act of. 54, 115 
Trent, Council of, 5(i, 117 
"Tristram Shandy," i>3, 121 
Trojan War, 115 
tru<'ulent, 115 
Tuileries, ")5. lift 
Turks, 114 

twice-cursed patronaKe, it3, I'M 
Tyrol, 117 

U 

Uncle Toby, 63, 121 
Uranus, 111 



Valclusa. 104, 14.T 

Vasco da Gama, i;?lt 

vat OS, 54, 115 

Venus rose from the sea, CD, 12^ 

Vergil, 117, ll'.i, 1.!.". 

" Virgilium vidi tantum," 82, 133 

Virjjins of the sun, 53, 115 

virtuosos, 48, 113 

Voltaire, F. M. A. 72. 128 

Vulcan, 123, 158 



W 

wad, (53, 121 
wae. 1)3, 121 
" Walker's Narrative," 30, 31, 41, 82, 

108 
" walketh on the wings of the wind," 

■Hi, 112 
Wallace. William. 12'.i, Kk') 
war-ode, the best, t»4, 122, 105 
wassail, G8, 125 
Wauchope House, 129 
wealth, etlicacy of, 100 
wee, 112, 12.-., 174 
welcome, the world's, '.t5, 138 
Wendell, Professor, 11(5 
Whitticr, (pioted, I'M 
WifTcn, .1. A., '.6. 13«» 
" Willie brewed," etc., 70, 170 
William of (Irange 1'2K 
"Winter Night." 57, 177-180 
Wisdom, heavenly, HS. 141 
Wordsworth, 121, l.'MJ 
work, blessedness of, Hi, l.'iO, 131 
wreeths. 118 
writers, peculiar sense of the word, 

40, lOli 

\ 

Xerxes, scheme to carve Mt. Athos, 
lOil 



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